


The Skin of Our Teeth

by thomasjeffersonsmacaroni



Series: the most evil ugliness [2]
Category: Town of Salem (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, yall are expecting details about the plot but i only use this to tag tws so you're not getting em
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-30 23:04:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni/pseuds/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni
Summary: The sequel to the last story. New games, old friends, and an entangled web of alliances and friendships.





	1. William, Angelica, and Stephen

Angelica watched the helicopter’s doors slide open. Inside, the pilot beckoned with one finger for the three of them – the winners – to enter.

“C’mon,” she whispered to William. “We gotta go. We gotta go home.”

William looked at her with somber blue eyes. They looked like glass vases, almost, ones that were shattered and filled with wilting flowers. They scared her, especially when she remembered William before the games. They scared her.

“Home?” he asked, as if he didn’t know what the word meant.

“Yes. Home. Back home to your…”

Angelica stopped. She didn’t know whether or not William had any family, and she didn’t want to accidentally offend him by asking. He was traumatized enough already.

“Sisters,” Stephen supplied, picking him up from the other side. “Marie and Alexandrie, right?”

“Elise,” William corrected feebly. “Not Alexandrie.”

“Right. Sorry, Will.”

“It’s okay.”

“Are you going to come in or not?” the pilot asked them. “We’re in a hurry. You guys are gonna miss the train back home if you don’t hurry up.”

“Give us a second,” Angelica said with an apologetic smile. She wrapped an arm around William’s shoulders and pulled him up.

“I’ll go,” William murmured. “For you.”

None of them mentioned how William had wanted to execute them just a couple of days before. None of them mentioned how Stephen had almost chosen not to side with the town. And most importantly, none of them mentioned Jane’s corpse hanging lifelessly from the gallows just a couple of yards behind them. They couldn’t bring themselves to.

But as their plane took off from the ground, and as Angie sat squashed against the window, she watched it. As the distance grew between them, it should have gotten smaller and smaller, until it was the size of an ant that she could pick up and squash. But it stayed fresh in her mind, smug smile still crossing its lifeless face.

Angelica bit her lip to keep from screaming.

 

The trio arrived at the mysterious headquarters of the games, where they were given thirty minutes to take their suitcases before their train left. William, Angelica had heard, lived in a village hours from the capital, so it would take him the longest to get home. She herself lived with her father in the suburbs, so it would take her the second longest. Stephen, who lived alone in the capital, would arrive first.

They would leave in thirty minutes – no, twenty-nine now. But if they had taken part in the games a decade before, it would take them hours and hours.

They would be fitted for fancy clothes, even if they had brought anything from home. They would be interviewed, and the footage broadcasted on all TV networks for their families and friends to watch. Hours and hours of interaction for kids who wanted nothing more than to go home and take deep breaths to keep from breaking.

Angelica could take it, she thought to herself, though it would take every ounce of strength in her body not to cry out. She could perfectly well lie through her teeth and talk about the great capital testing intelligence and power, talk about how much she loved the mysterious leader, talk about how she could bring home to her family a daughter who was worthy. Stephen, she thought as she watched him take his things, could do the same.

But not William. If William was forced to do anything along the lines of what had once been done, he would break once and for all.

_Oh, William, how are you going to survive?_

Angelica knew perfectly well that she didn’t know the answer.

“Hey, you all right?”

Angelica looked up at Stephen. He had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder, and his eyes were framed with the lines of concern. It was a strange look on his face, one that she hadn’t seen on his face before. But then again, there hadn’t been much cause for it to appear. Their only interactions had pretty much been the ones that they needed for the games.

“I’m fine,” she said, clenching a hand around her own suitcase. “Just thinking.”

“Oh, okay. It’s just that…”

He looked back at William but said nothing more. Angelica understood and nodded sadly.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Stephen asked, looking back to look her in the eye.

“Eventually, maybe. But not now. Don’t push him.”

“I won’t.”

Angelica nodded again, not entirely sure what she was supposed to say. She opted for a simple “Good” before turning back to her suitcase and pretending to fix the straps.

“Why do they give us thirty minutes anyway?” Stephen asked. “We barely have anything we’re allowed to bring. It doesn’t take us thirty minutes to get all that.”

“I think it’s to find our way to the train station,” Angelica said without looking up.

“Yeah, probably. Well, I’m, uh, ready, so I’m going with William to get lunch or something. Want to come with?”

“No, I’m not really hungry. I’ll eat something later. You go on ahead.”

“All right, I guess. C’mon, William.”

Angelica watched the two boys leave the room, luggage in hand. It was true that she wasn’t hungry: she couldn’t bring herself to eat. The image of Jane imprinted itself on her mind and wouldn’t go away.

 _How are you eating?_ she asked Stephen in her head, feeling the plea in her mental voice.

Another question she didn’t know the answer to. She wondered how long the list would be by the time she came home.

 

After William and Stephen ate, they came back to the room. Angelica watched with a blank expression on her face as they picked up their suitcases and Stephen beckoned with a hand for her to come. Silently, she followed them to the train station, where they sat on suitcases and waited for the train to come.

“You’ll get something from the snack bar, won’t you, Ange?” Stephen asked, turning to her while still holding William’s hand.

Angelica’s ears burned from the shortened version of her name. She wasn’t entirely sure why.

“I guess, maybe,” she said warily.

“Don’t ‘I guess, maybe’ me. I don’t want you to get sick. People can pass out – or worse – from not having food.”

“Why are you so worried about me all of a sudden? We’ve barely spoken before. I’ll get a bag of chips or something. Does that satisfy you?”

Stephen bit his lip and looked down at his feet. “Sure. But you have to eat.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my dad. You’re just my…”

Angelica stopped, unsure of what to say. Just as Stephen was about to open his mouth to complete her sentence, they heard a hum sounding through the station.

Their train had arrived.

Wordlessly, the trio picked up their bags and stepped on it. But before they could get into a random compartment, a waiter of some sort held up a hand to stop them.

“Mister William Mercier, you’ll be staying in Compartment Three. Mister Stephen Perrault will be in Compartment Four, and Miss Angelica Pitcher will be in Compartment Five.”

“Thank you,” Angelica smiled.

“My pleasure.”

“He was kidnapped by the Capital as a child,” Stephen whispered into Angelica’s ear as they walked to the front of the train. “I saw it in his eyes.”

“Hmm.”

Angelica walked into her compartment and took her laptop out from her suitcase. If there was Internet on this train – and there was Internet _everywhere_ in this modern day – then she wanted to talk to her father. She wasn’t sure if he had heard the news of her victory, and he must have been worried sick by this time.

When he answered her video call, he had a solemn look on his face, and it was clear that he’d been expecting bad news. The solemn look disappeared as soon as he recognized her, replaced by a smile that split his face wide open.

“Angie!” he exclaimed. “You’re alive!”

“I sure am,” she said with a faint smile.

“Are you coming home now? Someone misses you.”

Angelica’s smile widened. “Is it you?”

“You’re half right, sweetheart.”

“Half? Who else?”

“I’m glad you asked.”

Angelica watched her father step to the side, away from the camera’s view, and hold up a puppy that seemed to be a golden retriever. His eyes sparkled as he scratched the little guy behind the ear and kissed him on the head.

“Oh! What’s his name?”

“Well, first of all, she’s a her. And her name is Toffee.”

“Oh, I wish I could be there right now! I want to pet her so badly!”

Toffee barked – it couldn’t really be described as a bark, though, it was more like a _yip_ – as if she had understood. Angelica’s heart swelled, just like it usually swelled around puppies like her.

“I love her already, Dad. I can’t wait to come home so I can see her.”

“Just her?” he asked with a teasing grin.

“And you. But mostly her.”

Angelica’s dad laughed out loud. “Who else won with you, sugar?”

“William Mercier and Stephen Perrault. Do you know them?”

“I think I met Stephen on one of my trips to the Capital, but I don’t know William. Are they nice?”

“They’re okay. I don’t really know them that well. Honestly, I just want to go home and put this all behind me.”

“I’d feel the same way in your shoes,” Angie’s dad agreed.

“Yeah.”

For a while, they just sat in silence, looking at each other with smiles on their faces. Suddenly, Angelica realized that somewhere else in the train, her name was being called.

“I have to go, Dad. See you later.”

“See you later, sweetheart. One second. I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Angelica asked, standing up and bending down to look into the camera.

“Your mother would be proud of you.”

Angelica smiled, tears beginning to pool in her big brown eyes. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too.”

Angelica moved to hang up the call before she realized that her dad had done it already. Biting her lip, she slid the door to her compartment open and followed the voice.

She had never known her mother. All she knew was that she, too, had been in the games – a Jailor, her father had said, killed by a Serial Killer just three months after giving birth to her. Before her name had been picked in the random selector, and before she and her father had gotten that e-mail that she’d been chosen, she had never given much thought to the question of her mother. Now, though, Angie wanted to know her more than she wanted anything at all.

“Angelica!”

The voice sounded again. It sounded like Stephen’s – it was coming from the direction of his cabin, too – and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she slid open the door.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Oh my God, Stephen. I was talking to my dad. I’ll eat later.”

“Did you even eat breakfast today?” he asked, leaning against the wall.

“I think I grabbed a granola bar from the fridge in my kitchen. Is that enough for you?”

“I guess I’ll take that. I got these chips from the snack bar.”

He threw a bag of lightly salted Lays in her direction, and she caught it from the air with one hand.

“Thanks, I guess,” she said with a reluctant smile. “I’ll eat them later.”

“I guess that works. Come hang out in my compartment with me and William. You must be lonely in there.”

“Not really. But I’ll come in with you, I guess. Let me just get my stuff.”

Angelica returned to her cabin and scooped up her laptop and a book before stepping into Compartment Four. William was already there, staring out of the window, still and silent. Stephen, who was sitting next to him, looked over at Angelica and nodded to greet her.

“What book is that?” he asked, pointing at it.

Angelica wordlessly held up the cover. _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone._

Stephen grinned. _“Nice._ I was going to ask you to play cards with me, but go on reading. I always respect some good old _Harry Potter._ ”

Angelica sat down on the couch and began to read. Occasionally, she would look up at Stephen, and every time she did, she saw him glancing over at William and biting his lips furiously. Finally, Angie placed a bookmark in her book and walked over to him, placing an elbow on his shoulder so that she could whisper in his ear.

“Stephen.”

“Yeah?”

“Does he just live with his little sisters? Or does he live with neighbors or something?”

“They were all was orphaned when Elise, the younger one, was just a baby. Marie at the time was one, and he was six. His neighbors took him in, and they loved Marie and Elise but hated him. When he was old enough to move out with them, he did.”

"How do you know all this?" Angie asked him, mind working a mile a minute.

"I work in the Capital, remember? I got to see all of the files for everyone. That's what it said in his."

Stephen paused. "Well, I didn't actually get to see them, per se. I sneaked in and grabbed them."

Angelica nodded. "I got you."

"Why do you ask?" Stephen wondered.

"Well, he's been behaving strangely. I was wondering if someone could...look after him. To make sure he didn't do things."

The words for the specific kinds of things wouldn't come out. But Stephen understood anyway.

"No," he said, face accentuated with somber lines. "No, I don't think anyone could look after him. I don't think he'd do...what you think he'd do for the sake of his sisters, but his neighbors wouldn't be able to stop him for sure."

"Hmm," Angelica said.

William turned around from the window and silently moved towards the door. Before he could walk out, Stephen grabbed his hand and kept him back.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Just to get a snack. Don't worry about me."

"If you say so."

Stephen and Angelica watched him leave. Then, Angie moved to the other couch and resumed her reading until he came back with a small sandwich.

"Say," Angelica suggested.

"Yes?"

"How would you guys like to all live in the Capital together? You know, as a symbol of our friendship and whatnot? We could buy a house with the advances that we got, maybe all get jobs, and just be friends overall. What do you think?"

William looked at Angelica strangely.

"What about my sisters?" he asked.

"You can take them with you if you want. You know, call them back home and get them to come over. I was just thinking that it'd be a good idea for us to get to know each other. We're all old enough to get our own house, I think. You're all seventeen, right?"

The boys nodded.

"See? I think it's a good idea."

"I agree," Stephen said cheerfully, giving Angelica a look that showed that he knew what she was doing.

William hesitated for a minute at least. Maybe five. Angelica wasn't really keeping track. Eventually, he nodded.

"Let's move in together," he whispered. "I won't take my sisters along. They love their home too much. I'll just call them and tell them to move in with Mrs. Christopher."

“All right, great! I’ll call my dad to tell him what’s up, and then, I’ll look up houses. I think it’d be best for us to have a small apartment instead of a full-on house. I want us to have enough money to sustain ourselves, and I want to send some over to my dad and to charities as well.”

“I’ll leave some for Marie and Elise,” William said.

“All right, great. Excuse me.”

Angelica took her computer and moved it to her own compartment next door. She saw that her father was online on Skype and started a video chat.

“Angelica! Lovely to see you again, sweetheart. Did something happen? Why are you calling so soon?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I won’t be coming home. I’ll be living in the capital with William and Stephen. Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay. I trust you. You’re a responsible young woman. But may I ask why? You said that you wanted to just go home and get things over with.”

Angelica took a deep breath. “Well, I’m…I’m worried about William. Ever since the games ended, he’s just kind of been like a blank slate. I think he’s traumatized permanently from what’s happened to us. And Stephen says that his neighbors hate him. So if he wanted to go home and do drugs, or cut himself, or jump off of the roof of his house, or drink too much and die, then no one would be able to stop him. I’m going to miss you, of course, and I’ll be sad about not seeing Toffee, but I need to do this. I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Angelica’s dad said with a gentle smile. “You’re doing the right thing. I admire you, dear. Best of luck with William and everything.”

“Thank you, Dad.”

“Any time.”

“I’ll call you as much as I can. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, Angie.”

In the distance, a timer of some sort beeped. Angelica moved to turn around to look for its source before realizing that it was coming from her dad’s end.

“My dinner is ready,” he said. “I have to go eat. See you later?”

“See you later. I’ll look at apartments now.”

“All right, have fun. I love you.”

“I love you, too. ‘Bye.”

“’Bye!”

Angelica clicked the button to hang up and closed her laptop. According to the map of the train that she had passed by while getting to her compartment, there was a room on the roof where you could look around and watch the scenery pass. This late at night – how was it already late evening? – no one would be up there. Angelica would be alone, just like she wanted.

Once she climbed the ladder and sat on a lounge chair, she realized two things. The first was that she was cold, and the second was that she was hungry. She had forgotten to bring a jacket up here, and she was too tired to come down and get one.

Her stomach gave an angry growl. For the first time since that morning, the image of Jane faded away from her mind just enough for her to eat. She longed for Stephen’s bag of chips.

But she could eat later. Now, she needed to look for apartments.

Just as she went to open the webpage, she heard a grunt. A second later, the trapdoor swung open, and two muscular hands reached up and delivered a plate of food. From her angle, it looked like rice and beans, accompanied by vegetables and something yellow that seemed to be lemonade. Another few seconds later, the plate was accompanied by Stephen.

Angelica looked up and smirked. “You and your food again?”

“I’m not leaving until I watch you finish it. One granola bar for the whole day isn’t enough.”

Angelica set her computer aside. "I'm finally hungry, I'll admit that. This looks delicious."

Stephen placed it in front of her, and she dug in. It was only after she was almost done with the bowl that she thought to say "Thank you."

"No problem at all, dude. How's the house search coming along?"

"I'd only just come up when you got up here, so it's not coming along at all. You can help if you want."

"Sure. Give me one second, I need to scoot up a chair."

"There's room on this one for two people," Angelica blurted out.

Stephen smirked. "Are you propositioning me, Miss Pitcher?"

Angelica rolled her eyes. "Of course not. I just don't want you to go through all that effort. And..."

"And?" Stephen asked, moving over to her.

Angelica set the bowl down on a table and looked down at her hands. "I haven't hugged someone in a long time. I'm kinda touch starved."

"I got you."

Stephen sat on the chair next to her. It was fairly wide, true to her words, so the two were only subtly crammed together.

"I'm sorry about being so pushy, by the way," Stephen said as Angelica placed the computer on their laps. "About the food."

"No, I understand. You were worried. I'd feel the same way if it were me. I'm sorry for being such a dick about it."

“Okay, so we’re cool?”

Stephen held up his hand for a fist bump, and Angelica took it. “We’re cool.”

As they scrolled through apartments, opening in new tabs the ones that seemed interesting, Stephen opened his mouth as if to say something but then instantly closed it.

“What is it?” Angelica asked.

“Huh?”

“You looked like you wanted to say something to me. What did you want to say?”

“Oh, I…I just wanted to ask you something.”

“What did you want to ask me? We’re friends. You can say anything.”

“Okay. If you say so. I just wanted to know if our moving in together was really about friendship.”

“It kind of was,” Angelica said, scrolling through the information for an apartment choice. “But it was mostly about William. Like I said, I’m worried about him. I don’t trust a group of neighbors who hate him and two sisters who are eleven and twelve to keep him from doing something to himself.”

“Oh, I got you. Now that I think about it, I’m worried, too. He’s been acting weird lately.”

“Well, since we’re all friends now, we’d better be worried about him. Worrying is what friends do.”

“Exactly.”

All night long, the two stayed up in that room, not going to sleep until way past midnight.

 

The next morning, Angelica and Stephen brought down to William five different apartment potentials.

“Choose which one you’d most like to live in,” Angie said, placing the laptop in front of him.

“I don’t care. You two can decide.”

“You’re living in this house, too, William. We want you to have a choice in the matter.”

“I said I don’t care. It’s just a house. It’s not important.”

“Please just look through them,” Stephen pleaded. “That’s all I ask.”

“Fine.”

William looked through the listings with a stern look on his face. Eventually, he picked a two-bedroom one on a high floor near the city’s outskirts.

“That one’s good,” Angelica said cheerily. “You and Stephen can share a room, or, if there’s a fold-up couch, one of us can sleep on that.”

“Yeah,” William said halfheartedly.

“Yeah.”

Nodding awkwardly, Angelica returned to her compartment. According to a small TV screen on the wall, it would take them another hour to arrive to the Capital. In that time, she bought the house, chatted for a while with the landlord, and kept rereading _Harry Potter._

As the train came to a stop, William, Stephen, and Angelica took their luggage and went with it.

“When are we having breakfast?” Stephen asked. “I’m hungry.”

“We could go to Denny’s or something after we check in at our house. I’m getting hungry, too, to be honest.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The trio, guided by Angelica, took the bus to the stop nearest their new address. Using the code she’d been given, Angie opened the main door and stepped inside, where the landlord was already waiting.

“Angelica Pitcher?” he asked her.

“Yes, sir.”

“I just need you and your friends to provide proof of identity, and then I’ll give you all your keys and take you up to your house.”

Angelica pulled out her driver’s license and watched as William and Stephen did the same. The landlord nodded in approval and led them to the elevator.

“You three’ll be on the tenth floor in room 106,” he said as he pressed the button to go up. “I hope you already know that. And you know everything about the bills, too, and our rules, et cetera et cetera.”

“Yeah,” Angelica said with a nod.

“Our couch is a fold-up couch, so two of you can sleep in the bedrooms, and one of you can sleep on the couch, if you want. There is some furniture in the apartment already from its previous owners, but if you want, you can sell it and buy your own. Personally, I wouldn’t. One of them worked as an interior decorator.”

He winked, and Angelica smiled.

“Well, I think that’s all you need me for. Enjoy your new house, come to me with any complaints, and most of all, have fun. You’re kids, after all.”

“Does he know that we won the capital’s games?” Stephen asked Angelica in a whisper as they approached their apartment’s door.

Angelica unlocked it with the key that she had been given. “I don’t think so. Unless he’s hiding what he knows because he doesn’t want to mention it.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just set our luggage down and go eat. William, are you hungry?”

“Not really,” he sighed.

“You’re eating anyway. C’mon.”

Stephen dragged him by the hand out of the apartment. Once they were in the elevator once more, Angelica checked her phone for the nearest Denny’s.

“We won’t even need to take the bus,” she said. “It’s just two blocks away from where we live. We can walk there.”

“That’s good. Bad BO is the easiest way to kill appetite in a flash.”

Breakfast at Denny's passed by fairly uneventfully. After it was over, the trio walked back home and began unpacking their things. Stephen volunteered to sleep on the fold-up couch, leaving Angelica in one bedroom and William in the other. Before lunch, the small suitcases were unpacked already.

"What now?" Stephen asked as they sat at the small table.

Angelica's eyes lit up. "Hey, William, can you go down and ask the landlord what the best places to have lunch are? I've never been to the capital."

"I think Stephen knows," William pointed out.

Angelica gave Stephen a pointed glance, and he shook his head.

"I was poor, remember? I just kind of went from day to day trying not to die. I never really paid attention to the best places to have lunch."

"Oh, sorry," William whispered. “I’ll go down and ask.”

“It’s fine.”

Once he was out of the door, Stephen looked over at Angelica with bewilderment. “What was _that_ all about? I could have gone down and asked. And, by the way, what I said was true. In case you were wondering.”

“I’m still worried about what William could do. I’m going to take everything in this house that he can use to hurt himself and hide it.”

“I’ll help,” Stephen offered.

“Thanks. Look for sharp objects, heavy things that can be used to break a mirror, long neckties, anything that you think could be used. Bring it to my bedroom and place it on my bed. I’ll put it all in my suitcase and hide it.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Angelica walked around the house, gathering the things that she could find. She needed to act quickly before William returned, and she silently prayed that it would take him a long time.

Just as she and Stephen were placing the suitcase into a secret compartment under the couch, William opened the door with a piece of paper in hand.

“Sorry I took so long, but the landlord gave me a long list,” he said to Angie and Stephen. “Said he was happy that he had guests who wanted to try local cuisine instead of just gorging themselves on fast food.”

Angelica took the list from him and read it, and William and Stephen peered over her shoulder.

“I’m kind of in the mood for sushi. What about you guys?”

“Yeah, sushi sounds good,” Stephen said. William nodded his agreement but said nothing.

“Well, let’s go eat.”

 

Weeks passed like this. The trio, under pressure from Angelica, continued their high school studies from courses online, and about a month after the end of the games, Angie got a job as a barista at a nearby coffee shop. They had given some money to their families, some to charity, and some they kept for themselves for a rainy day.

And still, Angelica watched her roommates and saw no change. Stephen had largely recovered from any trauma that he might have faced, and so had she, but William was still as blank and still as ever. If it weren’t for her and Stephen’s efforts, then perhaps, he would have hurt himself already.

One night, Angelica was lying in her bed. She hadn’t been able to sleep, so she’d pulled the blinds to the side and stared out of the window at the moon and the stars. Suddenly, she realized that someone was walking around outside of her door.

 _Probably William or Stephen getting a glass of water,_ she thought to herself. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear.

But still, something tugged at the corner of her mind, some kind of worry that would be hard to push away. Unable to bear it any longer, Angie wrapped a robe around her night gown and stepped outside of the door.

William was walking around the living room, tiptoeing so Stephen wouldn’t wake up. He was obviously looking for something, something that was certainly not a glass of water.

 _The suitcase._ Angelica realized in a flash that he was looking for the suitcase.

“William,” she whispered.

William turned around, obviously ready to give an excuse, but the startled look in his eyes discredited anything that he would have said. Angelica held out a hand to keep his mouth from opening.

“Come with me.”

Angelica unlocked the door with one of the keys that was hanging on the rack. Together, she and William took the elevator up to the highest floor, where she pulled down a ladder and led him onto the roof.

“I always go somewhere up high when I need to be alone,” she said out loud. “I’ve done that ever since I was little. We had a tree in our backyard that I would climb whenever I was sad or angry.”

William nodded.

“I think you need to be alone, too, don’t you? You’re tired.”

“Tired of everything,” William whispered.

“Yeah. Let’s sit down, shall we?”

William sat on the roof cross-legged and watched Angelica do the same before beginning.

“You were looking for my suitcase, weren’t you?”

“It was a suitcase?” William asked.

“Yeah. Stephen and I put everything in my suitcase and hid it. That’s what you were looking for, weren’t you?”

William sighed. “Well, it’s no use denying it. You were right. That’s what I was looking for.”

Angelica nodded. “I see. May I ask why? I know I’m not a professional therapist or anything, and I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m your friend. You can tell me.”

“Promise not to call the police or anything on me?”

“Promise.”

“All right, then,” William said, more confidence in his voice than Angie had heard from him in a long time. “I’ll tell you.

“Stephen may have told you that I’m an orphan. But before I was, I grew up very poor. You may have heard the thing about the Capital hoarding the wealth that its people need, and I don’t think you could find a better application of that than my community. I saw suffering in my little home. I saw pain.

“When Elise was born, things grew hard for me and my family. We had even less money than before, and more often than not, my family went to sleep hungry. My parents had to work overtime just to earn a living wage, and my sisters and I barely saw them.

"One night, my mom didn't come home. Even after Marie and Elise grew tired and went to bed, I stayed up late on the couch, reading a book but not really, if that makes sense. Like, I knew the words, and I knew what they said, but I was just looking through it. I was too focused on where my mom was."

William stopped. "Sorry, I'm rambling. Let me get to the point.”

"Ramble as much as you want," Angelica reassured him. "We have all night."

"Okay. Anyway, that night, my dad came home and told me that my mom had been stopped by a government official. Even at that age, I knew what the government was. It ruled my life. I kind of had to. He told me that he had asked her questions about how much she made, how many children she had, and stuff like that. When he found out that she was poor and had three kids, he told her that she had to give up one of them, because poor people didn't deserve their children.

"She protested, of course. She didn't want to give her kids up. She could live on little money. So he took her to the nearby courts, and they had a quick trial, during which they basically said that the Capital comes first and that she had to give the kid up. She had until the next day to deliver.

"But she refused. My mother loved her children too much, and even though she'd never given much thought to it before then, she hated the Capital. So the judge pulled out a knife and slit her throat. Just like that.

"When my dad told me this, I just put down the book and sobbed into his chest. I couldn't take it anymore. How could the thing that was supposed to protect us be so unfair to us? America, the way we learned about it in textbooks, was democratic and free. This wasn't America. This was something else entirely.

"'Let's go back to France,' I wailed. ‘I want to go home.'

"I'm French, by the way - well, half French. From my dad. My mom's American.

"'We can't leave the country, sweetie,' he murmured into me, stroking my hair gently. ‘I’m sorry, Willy Billy.'

"My dad became something of an activist after that. He protested against the government that treated its poor, its women, its underprivileged in such a way. He should have known that it would end in disaster, that he would be leaving his children all alone without a father, but I don't think he cared. I think he thought that my mother, his dead wife, would want him to do something. To be more than a cog in this fucked-up system.

"He was stopped by a police official and shot on sight. The officer didn't get punished at all. I think he got a badge or something. And Marie, Elise, and I had to go to our neighbors. What else could we do?

"I think Stephen told you that they hated me. They loved Marie and Elise, but they hated me specifically. I spent my time all alone, with no one to teach me about life. Over time, I even grew apart from them, even though we were bonded by the most important thing: a tragedy.

"So I spent my life in school. I learned all about how the government was good and how people who hated it were bad. How my parents were bad. How they deserved to die. And I saw people around me actually believing what the schools taught us. Even Marie and Elise succumbed to the teachings quickly. They didn't even know what they were being taught, but they learned it anyway. At night, I would sob into my pillow, knowing that there was nothing I could do.

"I think I was ten when I made a decision. I told myself that even though everything around me night be terrible and awful, that didn't mean that I had to be. I decided to be nice to everyone I met, to make their days brighter, to be a good person overall. And that, of course, meant that I could trust people no matter what.

"Call it childish. I don't care. Make fun of me. But let me tell you, that childishness, that trust, was pretty much everything that kept me alive was I was growing up. I knew that I could always depend on my childishness, no matter what could happen. I could always trust the people around me.

"Then I was chosen for the games. And you saw where that blind trust led me. You saw that I jailed Robert and believed his claims, that I refused to execute Stephen despite that fact that he was obviously lying. You saw my childishness crumble into pieces. You saw me break for the very first time.

"And, of course, in the games, I met Alex.

"Alex?" Angelica asked. "That neutral girl who tried to get lynched?"

William shook his head. "I jailed them the night before. They told me that they aren't a girl. They prefer they and them. And what's more, they told me that these games erased them, and that they wanted to just die already. They asked me to lynch them. They wanted to rebel.

"That made me think. I was too much of a coward to do the same thing, or even anything like it. And I realized that I was only a cog in the fucked-up system, that I would always be a cog, that I was just a random teenager who hated the government but couldn't even do anything about it. I felt useless against it. And I felt ashamed for not doing more to try and escape it.

"The only way to escape it was to die. I spent nights in my room, not sleeping, just thinking about that. And I realized that I cared more about escaping the system than the pain of death.

William studied the lines of Angelica's face to see if he'd gotten any kind of reaction. But she merely nodded.

"I understand now," she whispered. "Thank you for telling me this.”

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" William asked. Angelica could see the tears beginning to pool up in his eyes.

"Not really. I feel like whatever I'll tell you, it'll just sound cliché. But do you want me to go down and bring Stephen up here so we can talk about this? I'm sure he has ideas for how to stop making you feel like this. I mean, he grew up in the Capital. He got to see all of that corruption face-to-face."

William nodded. "Sure. I can bring him up here if you like."

Get him away from the high building. He would have been blind if he hadn't realized what Angelica had been doing all this time. And Angelica would have been blind if she thought he hadn't.

"Actually," she said, moving towards the door, "I can get him. You can stay up here."

William smiled. "Thank you."

As Angelica moved down the ladder, she saw him approach the edge and put his arms around his knees, staring at the stars.

Stephen, as it turned out, was very confused when Angelica shook him awake. His brown eyes, still muddled with sleepiness, looked into hers as he sat up and wrapped a blanket around himself.

"What's up?" he grunted.

"Get dressed and go up to the roof. We're having a Roommates' Convention."

"Dunno what that is, but okay."

Angie closed her eyes and turned away as he put on a shirt and shorts until he told her that he was ready. Then, she led him up the same way that she had led William. When they got up, he was already sitting there, having already turned away from looking over the edge.

“Hey, guys,” he said with a smile. “Ange, should I tell Stephen what I just told you, or did you already tell him?”

“I didn’t. Take as long as you need.”

William chose not to take very long, instead opting to give Stephen a shortened version of what he’d told Angelica just a couple of minutes before. When he was done, Stephen looked at him with wide eyes.

“I…I don’t know what to say about that, Will,” he murmured. “That was quite a story you told me.”

“Can you help me? Is there anything you know of that we can do?”

Stephen sat down and wrapped one arm over one knee. “Well, there is _one_ thing that I can think of, but it’s pretty risky. It’s mostly arrest risky and not death risky, I think, but it’s still risky.”

“I don’t care about risk,” William said firmly. “I just want to do _something._ ”

“I’m proud of you, Will.”

William smiled.

“Anyway, so you probably don’t know this, but before the games, I was best friends with John. We lived together, along with his baby sister, Megan. One day, while I was out, the government came to his house and threatened him. He had to give up Megan or be killed, apparently. That disgusted me so much – the fact that he was such a _coward_ that he would rather let himself live than his sister – that I left him. That’s also why I did what I did in the games. I regret it now, but that’s all behind me.

“Anyway, after I left John, I landed a job at the main Capital building to make money to survive. My record was crystal-clear, so it was easy for me. While I was there, I learned that Megan, who’s now three, is being groomed there, along with a bunch of other kids. Groomed to be an inferior servant.

“So I was thinking that we could sneak in and rescue her. Is that rebellious enough for you?”

William’s mouth opened slightly, and he nodded with a smile on his face. “That’s rebellious enough for me. Thank you, Stephen.”

“Any time, my friend. Angelica, are you up for it?”

Angelica nodded. “Of course. I’m your friend, after all.”

Stephen held out a fist, and William and Angelica bumped it at the same time in a sort of triangle. All three burst out into laughter before William spoke.

“Let’s do this.”

 

The next couple of weeks were spent planning what the group was about to do. Stephen resumed his job in the main Capital building, apologizing for being on leave due to the games and recovery, and took detailed notes about as many things as he could. When he came home, he, Angelica, and William would look over what he had found and continue planning.

Over time, Angelica saw William change. Finally, with a purpose in life, he was digging himself out of the depression that he had trapped himself in, and he participated in just as many activities as he had before the games. Looking at him now, it was astonishing to believe that it was the same William who had moped around the house, looking for the suitcase and a way to die.

“Okay,” said Angelica on one of their gatherings. They had started holding them on the rooftop to commemorate the very first time they had met like this, and so far, it was working out fairly well. “According to my search on the government’s Web page, the harshest punishment for stealing government property is life in prison. So unless they break their own laws, we won’t get the death penalty.”

“Government property,” said Stephen with a shudder. William scowled in agreement.

“I know,” Angelica said, sitting between them. “It’s fucked. But hopefully what we’re doing here will change how things are. That’s why we’re doing this, after all. Right?”

“Right,” William said. “I just hope…”

“You just hope what?” Stephen asked, leaning over to look him in the eye.

“I just hope we have an impact of some sort. Something farther than Stephen and John, or the three of us, or one little girl. I hope people see what we do and think ‘Hey, this system is fucked up. If they did something about it, why can’t we?’ That’s the main reason why I want us to succeed. Not anything like selfishly not wanting to die.”

“That makes sense,” said Stephen. “I hope the same thing. Good luck to us?”

“Good luck to us.”

 

On the night before the rescue – as the team had begun lovingly calling it – the trio sat on the couch to go over the plan one last time.

Stephen had managed to negotiate an interview with one of the Capital’s reporters, and for that purpose, he would need to bring in the other victors. After they were interviewed, Stephen would go back to work, and William and Angie would innocently ask for a tour around the building. If this was granted to them, they would have to get visitor’s passes, which they could use to avoid suspicion after the tour itself, when they would meet up with Stephen, who would lead them to the room where Megan was being held. Together, they would take her out of her room and sneak with her out of the window.

They’d have to run away, they realized. Far, far away. Maybe even sneak out of the country. They would give up their whole lives in New America for one girl’s freedom.

But that was of no matter. That one girl’s freedom was worth more than their lives in the very same corrupt system that they were fighting against.

Thinking about this, Angelica went to sleep faster than she expected to, which was good. She would need all of her wits about her for the next day’s events.

 

The next morning, Angelica was the first to wake up. She made breakfast of scrambled egg burritos for herself and her roommates, which she covered with aluminum foil as she waited for them to wake up. Finally, she got tired of waiting and shook each of them awake.

“We don’t have to leave for another hour,” Stephen protested, pulling a bathrobe on and smoothing down his hair. “Why are you up so early?”

“I don’t know. Nerves. Come eat breakfast with me! I made scrambled egg burritos!”

“Ooh, delicious. Thanks, Angelica.”

“My pleasure.”

The trio ate breakfast and dressed in shirts and shorts under their formal clothes. Even though they still had fifteen minutes of free time, they decided to leave as early as they could.

“I don’t think I could stand another minute of waiting,” William said. “I feel sick to the stomach just thinking about it. And besides, if we show up early, we’ll make a good impression and get them to trust us. Right, Stephen?”

“Right.”

In lieu of the bus, Angelica called an Uber and sat awkwardly in its backseat. Luckily, the driver wasn’t a conversational one, though he did give them each a bag of chips an asked to rate him five stars, which Angelica happily did once they arrived.

“Remember,” Stephen whispered at the door. “Take out anything that could be used as a weapon and place it on the little side desk for screening. That includes your phone, your wallet, your hair tie, Angelica…”

“I can’t take out my hairtie,” Angie protested. “Have you _seen_ what my hair looks like without it? It’s, like, a mop of curls. It took me _forever_ to get it like this in the first place.”

Being black had given Angelica a hard time with her hair for her whole life. She’d had to straighten it for an extra-long time the night before just to tame it in a passable way for the interview.

“I know,” Stephen reassured her. “I know, and I’m sorry. But you have to do this.”

They stepped through the doors, where they instantly began screening. As Angelica struggled to take out the tie, she whispered, “How do you even use this as a weapon in the first place?”

“I know,” Stephen whispered, taking off his watch and watching William pull a penny out of his pocket. “Trust me, I know. I had to do this every morning for the longest time. It was the most frustrating thing ever.”

“I can see that.”

After the screening, during which the victors were proven to be reliable people, a worker was to escort them to the room where they were to have their interview.

“Don’t we need visitor passes?” Angelica asked innocently.

“Oh, no, ma’am, you don’t. You’ll just be here for the interview, during which you’ll have a permanent escort, and then you’ll leave.”

“Oh, I see.”

The four walked over to the elevator, where the worker pressed the button to go up.

“You three will be on the fifth floor. I’ll show you the way after our elevator gets here.”

“Thank you,” William said with a smile.

“Oh, no need to thank me, sir. I’m just doing my job.”

“Well, thank you, anyway. We need more people like you in this world. People willing to do their jobs.”

The worker laughed and patted William’s head. “You’re a good person, Mr. Mercier. Those are a rarity now.”

When the elevator arrived on the fifth floor, the doors slid open, and the worker led the trio out, walking down the hallway to Room 513, where he knocked on the closed door.

“Yes?” a male voice sounded from inside.

“I’m here with the victors, sir. For the interview.”

“Oh, yes. Give me a second.”

The worker stepped aside, looking down at his feet. Angelica realized that he was probably of a lower class, and as such wasn’t allowed to look higher-class reporters like their host directly in the eye. The door slid open, making no sound, and in that moment, Angelica got her first good luck at their interviewer.

He was tall and muscular, and his black beard had only a few wisps of graying hair. In his tanned hand, he held a cigar, though he threw it on the ground and stomped on it as he welcomed the victors into his room.

“You can go now,” he instructed the worker. “We don’t want your presence around here.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“And make sure to clean my room when I’m done with these three.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now leave.”

Wordlessly, the man left, footsteps barely a whisper on the tiled floors. When Angelica glanced at William, she saw that he was watching him with a still look on his face.

“Hello, sir,” Stephen said, looking up to look the man in the eye – although Stephen was tall, he still had to do that. “I’m Stephen Perrault, and these are my friends William Mercier and Angelica Pitcher. We’re all more than delighted to be here with you for the purpose of this interview. How are you today?”

The man nodded in approval. “It’s lovely to meet you all. I’m Mr. Thomas Stanford. Please, do sit down.”

 

During the interview, Angelica allowed her mind to wander. The questions, after all, were fairly simple – only how she felt about the Capital’s leadership, how she managed to win the games, how she coped with the trauma of her acquaintances dying in front of her – and it was easy to give the answers that Mr. Stanford wanted. Instead of thinking about the interview, she imagined what little Megan must look like.

John, as she remembered him, had straight auburn hair and brown eyes, so she imagined Megan to look the same. As a three-year-old, she might have hair that was fairly short – oh, and curly. Curly hair on small girls always looked cute. If the Capital allowed it, she might have tied it with a blue ribbon.

Her eyes would look sad, probably, sad and lonely. If what Stephen had told them was true, then Capital-owned children didn’t really have as much social interaction as they deserved. And if she recognized Stephen, if she didn’t scream and wail while she was being taken from her home, then maybe she would put her small head to Angelica’s chest and smile.

She would be another girl rescued from the Capital’s brainwashing. The very thought brought a smile to Angelica’s face.

“Excuse me, Mr. Stanford,” William said suddenly.

Angelica snapped herself out of her daydream. The interview was over, and now, they would need to ask for a tour.

“Yes, Mr. Mercier?”

“Might we…have a tour of the Capital building? I know this is quite unorthodox, but Miss Pitcher and I are very curious about how things are run. Maybe one of the workers could give us a tour, or you.”

Mr. Stanford frowned. “You’re quite right, Mr. Mercier. This is very unorthodox. But I suppose that it could be done. I will personally give you three a tour.”

“Oh, I don’t need one,” Stephen said. “I work in sanitation in this building. I already know a little bit about how things are run.”

“Not much, if you’re in sanitation,” Mr. Stanford protested. “You’ll accompany us on the tour as well. Consider it a victors’ treat. Follow me, and we’ll get you visitors’ passes.”

Once again, Angelica’s mind wandered, though this time, it ran directly into her heart, pounding her chest faster than it had ever pounded in her life.

 _Please,_ she thought. _Please let this work out._

The tour was over almost in a flash, and when it was, they ended on the very first floor. While the man wasn’t looking, Stephen led them to the stairwell, where they pressed against a wall.

“Meg is on the second floor,” he whispered. “C’mon, guys, we gotta hurry. Before they realize that you two didn’t leave the building when you were supposed to.”

“Of course,” William said.

They ran up the stairs, and the pounding of Angelica’s feet on the floor echoed the pounding of blood in her head. Following Stephen, they ran through hallways, passing rooms so quickly that they couldn’t hear what was happening inside of them, until they reached an unmarked door in which children were crying.

“Let’s go in there and take her,” Stephen hissed. “C’mon, we gotta hurry.”

_“Intruder alert. There are intruders on the second floor. Police forces will be enabled to capture them.”_

“Shit,” William breathed. Stephen frantically fumbled with the lock, swiping the keycard that unlocked the doors he was assigned to clean, but it wouldn’t work.

“The police are coming!” Angelica hissed. “Pick the lock or something. Your key isn’t going to work.”

“I’m _trying!_ ”

The door swung open. Just barely before the police ran up to them, the trio opened the door and ran in.

“There’s police out there, too,” William said, pointing out the window. “Watching for escapees.”

“All three of us can’t escape,” Stephen realized, walking over to a group of beds and scooping up a girl with auburn hair and green eyes. “We’ll need to change our plans.”

“Through the ceiling tiles, maybe?” Angelica suggested.

Stephen’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Perfect! We still can’t all three escape, but…”

He paused. In that moment of silence, the pounding of the police could be heard at the door.

“Angelica,” he said firmly. “Take Megan and go up through the tiles. Escape as far as you can, just like we were originally going to. William, try to go in after her. If you can’t, we’ll suffer the punishment for you.”

Angelica wanted to protest, to say that if they were going to suffer the punishment, so should she. But in that moment, Megan wailed in Stephen’s arms, and she realized that the sacrifice was for the child, not her.

“I’ll go,” she said.

Stephen placed Megan into Angelica’s arms and picked her up while William held the door closed with all his strength. After half a minute of fumbling, she was standing on his shoulders, holding Megan with one hand as she broke the ceiling tiles with the other.

“Good luck, Angelica,” Stephen whispered as he watched her sneak up onto the empty third floor. “Escape as far as you can.”

The last thing he saw was her feeble wave and her back as she ran through the hallway. In that moment, the door finally gave way, and the police burst in, ignoring William, who was picking himself up and dusting off his shirt.

“For evading arrest, theft of government property, and illegal entry into a government building,” their leader said, “you two will be given life in prison without a trial. If, however, you reveal the location of your third accomplice, your punishment will be relaxed.”

“No way,” Stephen said firmly.

“Very well, then.”

The policemen grabbed Stephen and William by the arms and led them out of the doors and into their car, where they sat, handcuffed in the backseat.

“Do you think Angie will make it?” William asked in a hushed whisper.

“Of course she will. She’s one badass lady. I admire her.”

“I could tell.”

“Remember during the games when I lied about being an investigator to get John lynched? On the day after, she just ran over to me, grabbed my arm, stomped on my foot, and called me a dicknozzle. Told me to tell the town her findings, or else she’d get me lynched. I was so terrified of her that I just agreed to do as she said.”

William laughed. “She’s great.”

He looked out of the window, pressing his face against the glass. Only Stephen could hear him whisper, “Good luck out there, Angie.”

 

In jail, the duo were given their own cell, only with a guard to monitor them all day. For the first couple of weeks, according to New America law, they would not be allowed to have any communication whatsoever with the outside world. This included family visits, news stories, and any use of technology.

After that, however, they were given half an hour of computer time each day. During this time, William and Stephen learned two things of interest.

Number one was that Angelica had not yet been captured. She was still on the run, as far as they knew, though warrants were given out for her arrest. Number two was that the games, which were usually held once every two months, were going to be postponed.

“Why would they do that?” William asked in confusion, looking over at Stephen, who was right beside him.

“No idea.”

Further investigation revealed that the government had been examining the games’ tapes, and they knew now that these were no ordinary games. There were rumors that the games were going to be remade with new roles, that the players’ corpses would be examined, that new technology and new drugs and new engineering was going to be organized to recreate the atmosphere. This would take them six months at least, maybe a year or more.

“The public is going to be happy,” Stephen said with a smile. “They won’t have to give up their children to these fucked-up death games.”

“Yeah.”

 

As it turned out eight months later, the “maybe a year or more” wouldn’t be needed, and soon, a report was released with detailed descriptions of the new roles and the new games. In order to read it, William and Stephen printed it out using the office printer, then sneaked over to the office during one of their outings to retrieve it. It turned out to be a fifty-page document, which Stephen called “obnoxiously long” but still read with interest.

According to the introductory couple of pages, there would still be fifteen people per game, and some of the pre-existing roles would still remain, but the structure would be different. Each game would have the following role list:

  * Jailor
  * Two Town Investigatives
  * Two Town Supports
  * One Town Protective
  * One Town Killing
  * One Random Town
  * One Godfather
  * One Mafioso
  * One Random Mafia
  * One Neutral Killing
  * One Neutral Evil
  * One Neutral Benign
  * One Any



The Town Investigatives would be the existing roles of Investigator, Sheriff, and Lookout, plus a new role called the Spy that could apparently read private messages and hear the mafia.

“Private messages?” Stephen remarked with scorn. “They’re really going all out to kill their kids, aren’t they?”

“I know, right?”

William read on.

The Town Supports would be the Escort, who would prevent someone from fulfilling their role at night; the Medium, who could talk to the dead-

“Talk to the dead? Where’d they get _that?”_

“It says here that they’re going to do it by injecting genes and that it was inspired by Laila. The Medium can also séance someone who’s living once they’re dead. That can be useful if an Investigator or something dies before telling everyone their findings.”

“Yeah. Sorry for interrupting you.”

“It’s all good.”

The Transporter, who could swap two kids and make targets aimed at one be aimed at the other instead; the Mayor, whose vote counted for three; and the Retributionist, who could bring a town role back from the dead.

“That’s useful, too,” Stephen burst in. “For Jailors and stuff.”

“Speaking of the Jailor, he’s moved to the Town Killing slot.”

“But you said the Jailor had a special slot for himself. Does that mean that there can be two Jailors in one game? What if one jails the other? Or they both pick the same target?”

William shook his head. “Says here that the Jailor, the Mayor, the Retributionist, and the Veteran are unique roles. There can only be one per game.”

“The Veteran? What’s that?”

“That’s another role for the Town Killing. Hold up, let me flip the page.”

The Town Killings would be the aforementioned Jailor, the Vigilante, who was sort of like a gun-wielding townie and could shoot people they thought were suspicious-

“That’s Emma,” Stephen recognized.

William nodded, grimace crossing his face. “Says here that if they guess wrong, they die.”

“What the fuck?”

“I know, right? They put _way_ too much thought in this. Why not just go to our houses and shoot us?”

“Ah, but that isn’t the Capital style. They want to ‘weed out the weak’ or whatever.”

“You’re right.”

The Vampire Hunter-

“ _Vampires?_ Are you serious?”

“I wish I wasn’t. There’s a very small chance of getting a Vampire Hunter in that slot, though. They only exist when there’s at least one Vampire, and those are only available in the Any slot. They’re Neutral Chaos.”

“Jesus Christ.”

And the Veteran.

Stephen leaned forward to peer at the page. “The Veteran. That’s one of the unique roles, right?”

“Yeah. Basically, they can ‘go on alert’ three times in the game, and when they do, a gas is released inside the house. Makes them go out of control and shoot anyone who visits them.”

“So sort of like PTSD.”

“I guess you could say that.”

For half a minute, William watched Stephen sit on the floor and glare ahead. Finally, he bit his lip and looked down.

“Keep going,” he whispered.

“Um, for the mafia, we have the old Godfather and Mafioso – Hey, are you all right? You look worried.”

“I…It’s just that…It’s just that that Veteran role sounds a lot like John. He had PTSD from when his parents died, and sometimes I’d find him at the door, holding his gun in his hand, waiting for someone to come. And the one time he wasn’t prepared is the one time someone came. I wonder if he did the same thing on the first night. Lean against the door and hold the gun he was given.”

“It’s ridiculous. They take the serious issues that we had and turn them into something to fuel their death games. They did the same thing with Emma. Remember?”

Stephen nodded. “It’s messed up. But I’m fine now. Anyway, keep going.”

“Okay, so for the mafia, the Godfather and Mafioso are the same. There’s also a Random Mafia slot with seven new roles.”

The Blackmailer, who could pick one person at random and forbid them to speak for the next day. The Consigliere, who was sort of like an evil Investigator, only they could find out the exact role. The Consort, who was an evil Escort. The Framer, who could pick one person per night and make them appear to the Sheriff as mafia and to the Investigator as Framer/Vampire/Jester.

“Wait,” Stephen said. “In our games, Polly had the wrong result for Laila. Remember? It made her get lynched. I thought she was a neutral like me, but nope. She was legit. Maybe this role was inspired by Quentin?”

“Maybe. That’d explain a lot, actually.”

“Yeah.”

The Forger, who could manipulate people’s last wills; the Janitor, who could completely _erase_ them and their roles; and the Disguiser, who could pick a target and appear as their role to the Investigator and after their death.

“Interesting. Now we get the Neutrals, right? I’m excited for this.”

“All righty. So, for the Neutral Killing slot, we get the old Serial Killer, plus new roles called the Arsonist and the Werewolf. The Arsonist can douse targets and then ignite them all, while the Werewolf can go on a rampage every other night and kill everyone at the target’s house. Both of their attacks go through night immunity. There’s a bunch of other technical details, all of which will apparently be given in a packet to the newbies, but there’s too much to get into right now.

“Neutral Evil is next. We have the Executioner, the Jester, and the Witch.”

“The Witch?”

“Yep. She can pick one target to control and one target to make the person she’s controlling target. So, for example, if she controls the Sheriff and makes him visit someone, then the Sheriff will investigate the person _she_ makes them visit.”

“Wow.”

“The Executioner is given a target at random from the town, but it can’t be the Jailor or the Mayor. Their goal is to get them lynched at any cost.”

Stephen frowned. “That’s…that’s me. I was the Executioner. I can’t believe I have a role based on my own anger at my ex-best friend.”

“I know, right? The last role here is the Jester. Their goal is to…get lynched.”

William put the paper down and glared at it so fiercely that he could have burned it into flames.

“That’s Alex,” he whispered. “They’re making a role based on Alex. This is…they don’t understand, Stephen. They don’t understand _why_ Alex did the things they did. But they’re making that role anyway.”

“The Capital doesn’t understand anything, Will,” Stephen said encouragingly, wrapping an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Don’t feel bad. Are there any other roles? You can stop if you want. I’ll read them.”

“Just the Survivor, who gets four vests and has to live, and the Amnesiac, who has to pick a role from the graveyard and fulfill its objectives. But seriously, Stephen, the Capital doesn’t understand us. To them, our feelings are just fuel for killing us.”

Stephen nodded. “It’s fucked up. But you know what?”

“What?”

“That’s how revolutions start. Every time a revolution has ever started in history, you can go back to its very beginning, go back through wars and riots and deaths, and you can trace it back to one person sitting at a table and thinking. Saying to themselves, ‘Hey, this is fucked up. Is there anything I can do about it?’”

“But _we’re_ that person, Stephen. And we’re trapped in jail, and our best friend is God-knows-where. Maybe dead. Maybe captured.”

“There doesn’t have to be one person. I’m almost one hundred percent sure that somewhere out there, there’s someone else thinking the same exact things we are.”

William looked up from the floor and smiled. Without hesitation, he stood up and walked over to the metal bars. If you stood on your tiptoes and looked really closely, you could see just the tiniest bit of sky.

“Hey, young revolutionary,” he breathed into that tiny bit. “We’re proud of you. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

He looked over at Stephen and smiled hesitantly.

“I hope it reaches him. Or her. Or them. I hope someone does something about this besides the three of us.”

Stephen nodded but said nothing more. Wordlessly, William stepped down from the window and joined him.


	2. Nikita

**Two Months Later**

_Bang, bang, bang!_

Nikita pulled the covers down from his eyes and peered over at the door. He had overslept for school again, he was realizing through the haze of sleepiness. He would need to hurry extra quickly to make it.

“Wait…” he whispered, looking over at his calendar. If the bright red numbers could be believed, it was the Fourth of July, a holiday that used to be celebrated in Old America. Even without fireworks and outings to celebrate the outdated ideal that all men are created equal, it was summer. And summer meant no school.

 _“Go away, Masha!”_ he yelled in Russian. Languages other than English were banned in order to create a cohesive state, and he realized that as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Nikita, the drawings are up. For the new games. And if you don’t _get up right now_ to look at them with us, I’m calling the police and telling them you broke a law.”

A cold chill passed down Nikita’s spine. He had heard what happened in the police force, and he didn’t want that fate to fall on him.

“You wouldn’t dare, Maria,” he hissed through the door, opening it just a crack to make sure that he was heard.

“You’re right, Nikita. I wouldn’t. But hurry up anyway.”

“I’ll be there in a second.”

Nikita put a binder on under his shirt and shorts and looked into the mirror to make sure his hair was smoothed down. Then, he opened the door and followed his sister to the living room.

Their mother was already there, biting her lip in frustration and waiting for the webpage to load. Nikita and Masha sat on either side of her and peered at it.

Of the two, Nikita had certainly been the one who looked the most like their mother. He had her light brown hair – though hers was much longer, down to her waist as opposed to a boyish haircut – and her blue-gray eyes. When he was born, the doctors had looked at Nikita and said that she would be a girl who enraptured the minds of men. Now, Nikita hoped that he enraptured the minds of men _and_ women – but not as a girl.

Masha, on the other hand, looked like their father, who was always on business trips and rarely came home. She had long blonde hair, bright green eyes, and big muscled arms from years of weightlifting. One of these now stretched around her knee as she waited for the assignments to load.

“Is our Internet not working or something?” Nikita asked.

“No, it’s fine,” his mother told him. “I checked it just before you guys came. Oh, there we go!”

The webpage, colored with the gold and silver of New America, finally pulled up, revealing a list of fifteen names. Most of them Nikita didn’t recognize, though he vaguely knew Rebecca Williams and Leonid Petrov from school. And at the very end of the webpage, he saw something that made his heart stop.

_Nikita Korolyov._

Masha and his mother saw it too. Instantly, Masha moved from their mother’s side to Nikita and wrapped her arms around him.

“You’re capable, Nik,” she whispered into his ear. “If anyone’s going to make it out of that arena alive, it’s you.”

“I hope so,” he said, trying his hardest to look optimistic. There was a time and a place for bitching about unchangeable circumstances, and now wasn’t one of them. His little sister needed her big brother.

“Well, at least they didn’t use my birth name,” he said brightly. “That softens the news a bit.”

“I’m glad you’re keeping a positive attitude about this,” his mother said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you. Go into that arena and kick their butts.”

“And serve the Capital, right, Mama?”

“And serve the Capital.”

As Nikita watched her go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, he saw a sad smile on her face. Ignoring how close she seemed to bursting into tears, he turned around and looked at the computer screen instead.

_Those on this list will be flown by plane to the Capital within two days. There, they will receive training about their roles, as well as prepare for the games. The training may take longer than usual due to the immense update to the role list._

“Oh, yeah,” Nikita whispered. “The new roles. We’re the guinea pigs.”

Masha smirked. “Did you actually forget, Nik? They gave us a, like, fifty-page document on it in Capital class. We had to memorize it and take a quiz.”

Nikita’s eyes widened as he looked away from the screen and at his sister. “You guys did?”

“What the fuck? You guys didn’t?”

 _“No cursing in the house, Masha!”_ their mother called from the kitchen.

“Sorry, Mama!”

Masha’s voice dropped down to a whisper. “Why did you guys not have to learn the roles?”

“Oh, we did. They devoted, like, half a week of class time to them. We played a simulator game the Capital had made. Town of Salem, I think it was called.”

“Oh, yeah. We played that, too.”

“But they never gave us a quiz. I’m sorry, Mash. It’ll get better when you get older.”

Masha frowned jokingly. “I’m _personally_ offended, Nik. I won’t speak to you until you come back home.”

If _I come back home,_ Nikita wanted to say. But he could see the worry in his sister’s eyes, so he shut his mouth. It seemed, though, as if Masha knew what he was about to say, because she wrapped him in another hug, squeezing one of his hands with both of hers.

“Please come home,” she whispered. “Not just for me. For Mama, too.”

“I’ll try, Masha. I promise that I’ll try my very hardest.”

Like this, the siblings sat in silence, doing nothing but holding each other, neither of them willing to let go. When their mother called them for breakfast, they kept on holding hands, squeezing as tightly as they could.

 

Two days later, Nikita waited on his front porch, clutching a suitcase in his hands. According to the packing list that his mother had been e-mailed, all that he really needed to bring were clothes and personal items, along with some form of identification. His mother, though, had baked him chocolate chip cookies and put them in a plastic bag, hiding them in one of the pockets of his suitcase. Masha, too, had joined in, embroidering a pillow with a bright yellow smiley face on it.

“Put it on your bed,” she had said the night before, wrapping it into a ball and placing it in his suitcase. “When you see it, think of me.”

“Of course I will, Masha. I promise.”

Now, the siblings exchanged glances as they waited for the shuttle that would take Nikita to the airport. It seemed as if there weren’t any words in the world to describe how they were feeling, so they opted instead for silence. Finally, as they saw the shuttle pulling up, Masha squeezed Nikita into a hug.

“You know I’m gonna miss you, right?” she murmured into his ear.

“I’ll miss you more.”

“I’ll miss you most.”

“I’ll miss you, uh, mostest.”

“That’s not even a word, Nikita. Try harder.”

“Fight me.”

“Masha, Nikita, now’s not the time for fighting,” their mother said softly above them, wrapping them into a hug and leaning her head on Nikita’s forehead.

“Sorry, Mama,” Nikita whispered. He felt the tears begin to flow, and he wished he could bury his face in her chest, just like he did when he was a little kid afraid of the dark. He opted instead for a kiss on the cheek before patting Masha on the head.

“I have to go now,” he said out loud. “See you later?”

“See you later.”

Nikita stepped into the back of the shuttle, suitcase in hand, and pressed his forehead against the window. He waved until he couldn’t see them anymore, and even then, he stared into the distance, wishing that the shuttle could turn around and take him back home.

 

After about half an hour’s drive, Nikita and the government servant arrived at the airport. Wordlessly, the servant opened the door and led him through the security checks. After what seemed like forever, they sat near the gate, servant staring blankly ahead.

Nikita pulled out his phone, texted a quick ‘We arrived at the airport, love you, miss you already’ to his mother, and opened a game app, where he mindlessly swiped for a couple of minutes before he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Nikita! Nice to see a familiar face. What’s up?”

Nikita looked up to see Leonid Petrov, a fellow Russian whom he knew only vaguely. Smiling awkwardly, he gestured at the seat next to him, and Leo sat down confidently.

“Thanks, man. Didn’t know anyone other than you. From our school, it’s just the two of us and Becca. The rest are from other cities, I guess. Or the Capital.”

“I guess-” Nikita began before he realized that the servant was next to him. He was pretending to sleep, but very obviously pretending, and he didn’t want to get arrested. Instead, he pulled out his phone, clicking out of the game app and opening the Notes.

 _I guess the Capital doesn’t even care about its own children,_ he wrote.

Leo smirked and pulled out his own phone. _You’re right,_ he typed.

“So, are you excited?” he asked out loud. “I hope we’re on the same team. I’d hate to work against one of the only two people I actually know.”

“Yep. I’m actually going to try not to make friends with anyone. I mean, what if I’m a killing role, and I have to kill them? Or even worse, if I’m wrong about my assumptions?”

Leo laughed. “You’re more pessimistic than I remember, Nikita.”

“Are you implying that I was ever _not_ pessimistic? Because I’m pretty sure you’d be wrong.”

“Well, I guess I didn’t know you very well. If we both survive this, let’s try to change that, huh?”

“You know it, man.”

Leo held out a fist, and Nikita hesitantly bumped it.

After that gesture, they sat next to each other and exchanged glances.

“So, uh, who talks first?” Nikita asked. “You talk first? I talk first?”

“I guess I’ll talk first. How was your day today?”

“Sad. I had to leave my mom and sister behind. I’m going to miss them. Do you have any family you’re leaving behind?”

“Yeah. My two dads. And my brother. I’m really going to miss them.”

“I’m going to miss my family, too,” Nikita sighed, glancing down at the space between the seats. “I wish I could take them with me.”

Leo took out his phone, opened his Notes app, and typed _I wish these games didn’t exist._

 _Me, too,_ Nikita typed in his own phone. _I’m worried about what will happen to my mom and sister if I die._

At the mention of death – and his own death, no less – a chill passed down Nikita’s spine. Leo noticed this and placed a hand on his new friend’s shoulder.

“You’re going to be fine,” he whispered. “I just know it.”

Nikita looked over and smiled. “Thanks.”

Within the next ten minutes, it was announced that the plane would begin boarding. Leo moved his hand to shake the government servant, but he miraculously awakened, eyes showing no hint of tiredness whatsoever.

“Let’s go,” he said gruffly. “Mr. Petrov, please rejoin your own escort.”

“Mr., uh…” Leo began, scanning Nikita’s escort for a name tag but finding none. “Would you mind changing seats with me so I can sit next to my friend?”

“I cannot do that, Mr. Petrov. I apologize.”

“Oh, that’s fine.”

With a final wave to Nikita, Leo moved to return back to his seat. In that moment, the two heard their names being called by a cheerful, feminine voice. They turned around to see Rebecca Williams, purse hanging off of her shoulder, smiling widely and waving with one hand.

Before Nikita had moved into high school, he had never understood the term “human ray of sunshine.” He had, however, found the meaning of that term in Becca, whom he had met through freshman math classes but knew only vaguely. At 5’0 – in comparison to his own 5’4 and Leo’s 5’7 – she was without a doubt one of the smallest girls in their grade. She made up for this with a bright personality, a smile she offered to seemingly everyone, and shining brown eyes that seemed to contain the world.

“Nikita! Leo! It’s great to see you guys. What are your seats?”

They showed her their boarding passes, and she noted with dismay that they would be far away from each other.

“Aw, man. I was hoping we’d be able to talk to each other or something. I wanted to get to know you before the games. We’ve never really talked before, have we?”

“No,” Nikita agreed. “We haven’t.”

“Yeah. Do you guys want to sit next to each other when we get there? Like, at dinner?”

“I think we’ll have to,” Leo said. “I won’t know anyone there. And Nikita here isn’t interested in making friends.”

“Why’s that?” Becca asked.

“Because he doesn’t want to have to kill them later. Our Nikita Korolyov is a pessimist, apparently.”

Rebecca’s lower lip jutted out. “I hadn’t thought about that. I guess I’ll stick to you guys, too.”

Nikita’s heart overflowed with pity. He had never seen Rebecca this sad before. Watching her felt like watching a puppy after he had kicked it.

“I’m sorry, Bec,” he said worriedly. “I didn’t mean to, uh-”

Rebecca shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I was going to have to face the reality eventually. It’s not your fault at all. No hard feelings.”

“Are you three going to board or not?” the control agent called out.

Nikita, Leo, and Rebecca exchanged glances and smiled. Then, they grabbed their suitcases and moved towards the exit wordlessly.

 

After about three hours, the plane landed, and their escorts led them to the Capital building where they would be trained. The games themselves, a bored-looking worker informed them, would be held in an arena on the Capital’s outskirts. They would have an hour to go to their rooms and get settled in before they would be called for dinner.

Nikita unpacked his clothes into the closet they were provided with, placed his laptop into the safe – he made the passcode 2581, same as his house number backwards – and set his phone down on the nightstand. Then, he took off his clothes and placed them into the laundry hamper. The dinner had requested formal clothes, and what he was wearing was by no means formal.

He chose a suit – dark and made out of a thick material that wouldn’t show his binder – and a light blue tie. Using the mirror in the bathroom, he brushed his hair to one side and made sure there was nothing embarrassing on his outfit at all. Once he was certain, he took his phone and Facebook messaged Leo.

_Nikita: Hey, where’s your room? I’m #5_

_Leo: I’m at the very end, #14. Becca’s #7. We’re playing cards in my room. Want to come?_

_Nikita: On my way_

Nikita shoved his phone into his pocket, locked the door, and walked down the hallway. True to Leo’s word, they were sitting on the floor and dealing out cards. Leo wore a suit with a dark green tie, and Becca’s long braid was now a bun on top of her head.

“Hey there,” he said, leaning against the open door.

Becca looked up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Hey, Nikita! Come sit down. We’re playing B.S. to pass the time.”

“Oh, fun. I love B.S.”

Leo ran a hand through his blonde hair. “Bec, give me back your cards. You know, so I deal them out fairly.”

Becca obeyed, and Leo redealt them. For the next hour, they did nothing more but play, waiting for the moment when they would be called for the dinner.

“We’re sitting next to each other, right, guys?” Becca asked when the announcement finally came. “Just like we planned?”

“Of course we are.”

Together, they walked to the dining room. The other twelve players were already sitting at the huge circular table in the center, examining the fifteen glass figurines on the centerpiece.

“Very _And Then There Were None­-_ esque,” Nikita observed out loud.

A girl with long strawberry blonde hair nodded. “I noticed that, too. Creepy, huh?”

“Very creepy,” Rebecca agreed.

“I’m Patrice, by the way. What about you?”

“I’m Leo,” Leo said, “and these are Nikita and Rebecca.”

“Nice to meet you all.”

The trio sat down in the three available seats and looked around at the table. Of the three, Patrice had been the only one to acknowledge their presence whatsoever. Everyone else sat staring at either the table or at their phones, communicating only through awkward glances.

“I’m Sarai,” another girl said finally, smiling gently. She had short brown hair and light brown skin, and her glasses made her look like a grandma instead of a teenager.

“Sarai here is friends with _everyone,_ ” Patrice whispered. “She’s already made everyone like her. She’ll go really far in the games, I’m sure of it.”

“I’m Jay,” said a kid with blue hair, following her lead.

“Ben,” said a small kid with curly hair and freckles.

“Celestine.”

“Daniel.”

“Sean.”

“Emily.”

“Rachel.”

“Caitlin.”

“Amelia.”

The last of the group was a guy with brown hair that fell over one eye. He peered at the trio warily and frowned.

“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” Sarai asked him sternly.

“I guess I will. The name’s Aidan. It takes some effort for me to like you. Just letting you know.”

“Um, okay?” Rebecca asked, hiding her disgust behind a cheerful face. “Thanks for telling us this? I guess?”

“It’s gonna take a _lot_ of effort for _us_ to like _him,_ ” Amelia whispered to Nikita with a smile on her face. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen, actually.”

Nikita nodded. “I can see that.”

The food – steak and pasta – was served, and the group dug in. Sarai’s warmth was the only thing keeping the awkward conversation alive, though it felt as if she was keeping it on life support, that she could pull the plug and let it fizzle out at any moment.

“Looks like they have the same idea as you,” Leo whispered. “No friends, just allies. And it’s not time for allies yet.”

“I think so, yeah.”

When the food was finished, and the group was given permission to return to their rooms, all fifteen were glad to go. Nikita pulled his laptop from his safe, opened up Skype, and saw that his mother was online. Just as he was about to press the button to video call her, he saw that she had done it first and answered it.

“Hey, Nik!” she exclaimed delightedly. “How was your first day in the Capital?”

“Boring. I played cards with Leo and Becca and then went to dinner. It was _really_ awkward.”

“I can imagine. It’s hard to have dinner with someone you know you might have to kill later, right?”

“Exactly right. Where are Dad and Masha?”

“Masha’s doing summer homework. I’ll call her. And Dad’s coming home from his business trip tomorrow. He’ll be back home for two weeks.”

“So if the game ends quickly, then I might be able to see him. Right?”

“Right.”

Nikita smiled. “That’s good. I haven’t seen Dad in a long time.”

“Me, neither. Okay, I’ll be gone for a minute. Calling Masha. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

Nikita watched his mom leave and smiled wistfully. It hadn’t even been a full day, but already, he missed his family terribly. It was good to see them, even if it was only via video.

_“Nikita!”_

Nikita nearly dropped his laptop, barely managing to steady the screen with one hand. The sound had been so loud through his speakers that he could feel the vibrations on the skin of his legs. It was by this, and this only, that he knew that it was his sister.

And there she was, blond curls flying behind her, slamming her butt down into the chair and hugging the screen tightly. Nikita could see the skin in between her neck and her chest and smiled softly at her childishness.

Finally, Masha broke free, tears already pooling in her big green eyes.

“Hey, Nik. I wish I could hug you for real.”

“Me, too. I miss you already, Mash.”

“How was your first day?”

“Awkward. And boring. I wish you were here to liven things up. I have, like, two friends here.”

“Leo and Rebecca, right?”

“Yep. I’m trying not to make more so I won’t have to kill them later on, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem for me. Pretty much no one here likes anyone. There are some people who are nice, but that’s just common courtesy, honestly. Or trying to paint yourself as a good person so people don’t kill you until much later.”

“I can imagine. So, when exactly do the games begin? Do you know?”

“We have tomorrow for review and practice. The day after that, we get our roles – sort of like Day 1. Then, on Day 2, things officially begin.”

“Ah. Gotcha.”

“Yep.”

Masha smiled. “Well, good luck, Nikita. They don’t allow computers in the games, right?”

“No, they don’t.”

“Call me on the day before, then. Tell me everything!”

“I will. I promise.”

Nikita yawned and looked over at the alarm clock by his bedside. 10:30.

“I’m going to go to bed now. I’m _exhausted._ Good night, Mash.”

“Good night, Nik.”

The two siblings smiled at each other. Once the call was over, Nikita closed his laptop and set it to charge.

He would have a long day ahead of him tomorrow, and he needed as much rest as he could manage to get.

 

The next morning, Nikita was awoken by the pre-set alarm clock. He reached over with one hand to turn it off, and just as he did, he felt his palms brush against a piece of paper. Hurriedly, he put on his glasses and examined it.

 _NIKITA KOROLYOV,_ it read.

_Do not go to the location of yesterday’s dinner for the purpose of eating breakfast. Your breakfast will be in room 104. After breakfast, you and the others will be taken to the main room and given strategies on roles. Be sure to bring the notebook and pencils that you were told to pack._

“But I didn’t bring a notebook,” Nikita said out loud.

He decided to borrow some paper from Leo or something. And a pencil.

With this in mind, he tugged on his binder and clothes, grabbed his phone and keycard, and left the room to go eat breakfast. Once there, he opened the door and looked around the room.

Technically, there was a huge table that was big enough to seat fifteen, but upon closer inspection, that table was actually made of a couple of smaller tables. Caitlin, who was the only other person in the room, was already pulling them apart and setting them around the room.

“I’ll help,” Nikita offered. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t think we’ll all be willing to sit at the same table. I’m doing everyone else a favor.”

“If you say so.”

Caitlin was a small girl – Nikita would say that she was about the same height as Becca – so she struggled with the lifting of the heavy tables. Eventually, Nikita took over the whole operation while she went to get breakfast.

“Thanks for your help, dude,” Caitlin said brightly when they were done. “Want to sit with me after we get food?”

 _No,_ Nikita wanted to say. He remembered his rule about making friends. He didn’t want to make the mistake of trusting people who weren’t meant to be trusted.

“I want to sit with Leo and Becca,” he said instead, heart panging at the thought of accidentally offending her. “I don’t know if they’d let you. I’m sorry.”

Caitlin gave him a mysterious smile that showed that she understood what he truly meant. “Oh, okay. Don’t worry about it.”

The door swung open just as Nikita was getting himself some eggs. Quickly, he recognized the two people who had come in as Patrice and Ben, chatting excitedly about something Nikita didn’t know.

“Oh, hey!” Patrice exclaimed, walking towards him. “Nikita, right? I remember you from yesterday.”

Her blue eyes flashed with excitement, so much that they almost made Nikita flinch. Hesitantly, he held out a hand for her to shake. Instead, she high-fived it, grin showing all of her straight white teeth.

“It’s nice to see you again. You know Ben, of course.”

She gestured with one hand at the younger-looking boy, who was getting himself some bacon and hot chocolate. Nikita nodded, watching him blankly.

Ben had short brown hair, with what was there wound up into tight curls, and from his freckled face sparkled shining blue eyes. Whereas everyone else in the room – Nikita, Patrice, and Caitlin – looked fifteen or over, Nikita would be surprised if Ben was over fourteen. He placed his age as thirteen, especially coupled with the youthful way that he carried himself around the room, as if he was filling the role of the ingénue in a period drama.

_Ooh. That’s a fun way to think of it. Just another period drama._

Nikita _loved_ watching period dramas at home with Masha and his mother. Their favorite was probably the BBC War and Peace, even though their mother would sit and grumble about the inaccuracy of the costumes.

Patrice carried herself like a queen. She looked to be about Nikita’s height, with strawberry blonde hair that was now done into a braid, and makeup that you could only notice if you looked extra closely. Light blue eyes were hidden behind glasses, and freckles dotted not only her pale face but her entire body, too. But she carried herself with confidence, and it would not be difficult to cast her as a ruler.

Caitlin approached behind them. With her delicate build and softness, she would probably be the princess. The daughter of the queen could very well kick ass and take names if given the opportunity, though, and Nikita reminded himself as he sat down not to underestimate her.

The next two to arrive were Leo and Becca.

“Where were you?” Leo asked sternly, seemingly rising up in anger.

He, Leo, and Becca would be the cliché group of friends in the main city trying to adjust to high society. Not ingénues, most likely, just people trying their hardest. Like the Harry Potter trio.

Leo had blue-grey eyes hidden behind tortoiseshell glasses and dirty blond hair. He was tall, taller than most if not all of the people in the games, and when he leaned over, one could see the muscles he had developed from playing sports. Next to him sat Becca, dwarfed in comparison to him, one long brown braid falling over her dark-skinned shoulder. To an outsider, she looked soft and gentle, but Nikita knew from vague experience that she was not to be messed with.

“What do you mean?” Nikita asked. “I went downstairs. As far as I knew, you two had already done the same.”

“We were waiting in my room for you,” Becca said, propping one elbow against the chair’s armrest.

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to blow you guys off.”

Leo clapped Nikita on the back. “Oh, don’t worry about it, man. We’re just messing with you.”

“I knew that.”

Nikita kept watching the door. Somehow, assigning these roles in a period drama was calming him, and he sure as fuck was going to need calm for what was to come. Already, food was barely managing to find its way down his throat.

The next person to come in was Sarai. Her hair, brown but dyed red at the tips, was done into a bun, and she wore a shirt and jeans as she got her food and walked over to Caitlin. Cait, Nikita could see, accepted her easily, and in that moment, he cast her in the role of the nurse, like in _Romeo and Juliet._ He felt a sudden urge to hug her and protect her from the world, one that was surprisingly difficult for him to suppress. Instead, he waved to her from across the room, and she, catching his eye, waved back.

Nikita looked back at his friends. Becca opened her mouth, as if she was going to say something, but then closed it again. Nikita thought about asking her what she wanted to say but then decided against it. If she wanted to, she would tell him in time. He didn’t want to push her.

Next through the door came Celestine and Emily. Both – Celestine with dark skin and wavy black hair and Emily slightly bigger and a ginger – carried themselves confidently, and it was easy to imagine them wearing sunglasses, like celebrities. They didn’t quite fit the role of “queen” as well as Patrice did, so Nikita imagined them as high advisors instead.

Neither of them spoke, not even to each other, which indicated that they hadn’t come in together intentionally. Instead, they grabbed a meager meal and took separate tables.

“Hey, Nik, are you okay?” Leo asked his friend. “You look like you’re concentrating on something. I see you make that same face when you’re in a crowded room or working on a math problem.”

“Just trying to calm myself down.”

“How?”

“By casting everyone in a period drama.”

Nikita explained his current casts to an intrigued Leo and Becca, who smiled when he was finished.

“We’re flattered to be your cliché friends,” Becca said, placing a hand on his.

“And I’m sure Patrice over there is flattered to be the queen.”

Nikita looked over and saw that Patrice was sitting with Emily and Cait. Amelia – he hadn’t even noticed her come in, but apparently she had – carried her tray in her hands, looking as if she wanted to sit down in that empty space next to them, but eventually moving on and sitting at a table of her own.

One’s first instinct would be to describe her as shy, but she didn’t seem shy, just lonely. Lonely and insecure and unconfident, unwilling to trust already for fear of being left behind over and over again. Brown hair hid sad brown eyes and a gentle figure, and Nikita decided that she was the maid, quietly sweeping in one room and looking over at the people of high society, longing for something but not knowing what. Nikita never paid much attention to these kinds of characters during their watching sessions, but sometimes he looked over at his mother while they did, and he saw a kind of look cross her face. He never paid much attention to it until now.

Now, Amelia was evoking a kind of pull at his heart, and he didn’t even want to stop and think about whether it was a ruse. If it was, she was an extraordinarily good actor.

Jay, Daniel, Rachel, and Sean all came in, but already, Nikita had forgotten who of them was who. He had always been semi-good at telling people’s personalities from just one glance, but these people seemed to have very little substance on the surface. They were just the random lords and ladies milling about in the background, the ones who almost certainly had lives and loves of their own, but the ones that were brushed to the side and kept secret in favor of the main characters. Maybe someday, Nikita would find out more about them. But that someday had not yet arrived.

The last to arrive was Aidan, the one who Amelia had said was a tryhard at being cool. He certainly seemed like it now, with a leather jacket over a flannel, jeans, and long hair falling over one eye. He almost made Nikita wince in secondhand embarrassment.

He wasn’t even the antagonist, if Nikita was being honest. He was barely worthy of being a character. Most likely, he was the butler in the background, the one who everyone suspected of the murder instantly.

The doors closed automatically, and Nikita realized that this probably meant that everyone had arrived. He whispered as much to Leo and Becca, who nodded in agreement and resumed their silent meals.

Nikita hurried through his food. Everything was so awful, the scent of death and murder choking the air and making any conversation impossible, that he almost _wanted_ to learn about the death games. Somehow, implicit murder was much worse than its explicit sibling.

After he was done, he watched everyone else finish, still silently looking around at each other. A couple of minutes passed like this in the choking awkwardness before the door swung open once more, and a nervous-looking servant beckoned with a hand to follow them.

“He’s so low that he’s not even allowed to _speak_ to us,” Caitlin whispered to Nikita. “There’s a really weird hierarchy of servants that’s partly based on random chance and partly based on their behavior. I read up on it just before I came here.”

Nikita frowned. “Are we allowed to give them verbal permission to speak to us? Because I get the feeling that it’s going to be really hard on both of us if only one of us can talk.”

“Nope. I mean, I guess we could, but it’d just screw him over in the end.”

Studying Caitlin’s face, Nikita wasn’t sure whether she was speaking for the system or against it.

Slowly, they walked down the aisle until they arrived to a room labeled 119. Inside was a typical classroom setting, with desks built around a space in front of the board. Their teacher hadn’t arrived yet, but a piece of paper roughly scribbled on the door indicated that he would very soon.

“Oh, yeah,” Nikita said out loud. “Leo, could you lend me some of your paper? My packing list didn’t include a notebook and paper for some reason, and I don’t want to miss out on jotting down important information.”

“Of course,” Leo said, and he was about to begin reaching into his backpack before Patrice tapped Nikita on the shoulder.

“I actually have an extra notebook,” she said cheerily. “And an extra set of pens. Do you want them?”

“Ooh, thank you,” Nikita said with a smile. Patrice reached into her backpack and pulled out a simple blue spiral.

“Any time, man. I’m always ready to help out.”

“Well, thank you.”

 _Am I supposed to continue the conversation or not?_ Nikita wondered. The teacher had yet to arrive and relieve him from this awkward situation. After a moment’s consideration, he decided that social convention would dictate for him to continue talking.

“Nice people are a rarity nowadays. It’s always nice to meet someone so, uh, nice.”

Patrice chuckled softly. “I could say the same about you, Nikita. I hope these games treat you well. You deserve it, and Lord knows they haven’t treated others well before.”

“Same to you.”

Nikita realized in that moment that the two of them were the only ones who hadn’t taken a seat in the classroom. The only ones that were available were two next to each other in the back of the room, so they took those, looking at the board strangely as they waited for their mysterious teacher to arrive.

The door swung open once more a couple of minutes later, and all heads in the room swiveled to the back to look. The new teacher was a man with blond hair tied into a man bun and green eyes, one of which was hidden behind a monocle. The lines of his tanned face were framed with seriousness, a seriousness that was emphasized in his stern gait as he made his way to the front of the room and wrote a single word on the board.

_Trust._

“As you know,” he began in a raspy voice, “the games were based on the Salem Witch Trials, which is why the simulator game we release to the public is called Town of Salem. And in these trials, there was absolutely no trust among the villagers. In theory, the lack of trust anyone could be a witch. But the reality was that it was because anyone could accuse them of being one.

“I have watched the fifteen of you interact, and I have noticed that you have realized something along these lines. You have recognized that anyone among you could be a mafioso, a serial killer, a jester. You have firmly set itself in your minds not to trust _anyone._ Am I right?”

Across the rows, there were reluctant nods.

“Of _course_ I’m right. There’s psychological research behind it, but you don’t need lab experiments to prove the basic human psyche. And you don’t need lab experiments to prove that something inside of you is betraying that principle. You offered each other seats at the breakfast table. One of you gave the other an extra notebook. Some of you have formed friendship groups of sorts, ignoring the fact that the role structure may not necessarily follow them.”

Nikita looked down at his hand, which was clenching the pen tightly. Before this mysterious man had walked into his life, he had never thought about the idea that he, Leo, and Becca would be broken up by the games. The idea had simply been ridiculous to him.

“And that is natural. There is no shame in doing that. The human body and the human mind crave contact equally. My job is not to discourage the building of trust. In order to survive these games, one needs to form allies, and all alliances depend on a foundation of trust. My job is merely to remind you that these games are not the Town of Salem simulator. These games are serious business. They prove your worth to the capital. They are life or death.

“So that is why we will not be playing the Town of Salem simulator today. We will merely be learning about roles and good strategies for them. Open your notebooks, please.”

Nikita shook so hard that he could barely hold his pen. He had thought about everything that the man was saying, of course – he had to, if he was to survive – but it had always been a sort of distant thought in his mind, something that could easily be put away on a lower shelf and ignored until later.

Now, everything was becoming painfully real.

 

The rest of the day was spent on memorization, with only a short break in the middle of the day for lunch. Nikita spent this in a bathroom stall, legs perched up on the seat so no one noticed him, and when he was asked about his sudden absence, he said that he was video calling his sister.

He would have to call Masha eventually. In this new system, one that was taking his entire world and shattering it into tiny pieces, she was the only person that he could depend on. She and his mother and his father who had finally come home.

But not until later. Nikita’s head was spinning too much to even form coherent words.

 

After the official day ended, they were given two hours or so to return to their rooms and relax before dinner. Nikita spent this time on reviewing the roles, classical music playing through his phone speakers, and procrastinating calling his family. Finally, half an hour before they were due to eat, Nikita decided that enough was enough and picked up his laptop.

Masha, as he had guessed, was online, and she answered his call almost within a second. Her eyes shone for a second before drooping, pushing a pang into Nikita’s chest.

“Hey, Nik! Are you all right?”

Nikita forced a smile. “Yeah! Totally fine! How’ve you been, Mash? I hear Dad is home. Have you talked to him? I miss him. I’d like to talk to him, too. He probably wants to know all about how my life is. Oh, man, I really miss you guys. The Capital is boring, and I-”

“Nikita, stop it!”

Masha cut him off with a wave of her hand and a stern look on her face. “You’re rambling. I know you’re upset when you begin to ramble. Please tell me what’s wrong, okay? _Please._ I’m your sister. We tell each other everything.”

Nikita took a slow, shallow breath. “I’m fine, Masha. I’m sorry. How’s Dad?”

“You’re not fine. Tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll call Dad over so you can talk to him. He’s taking a walk or something. Mom’s at work.”

“Okay, fine. We had this teacher today, and he basically reminded us to be careful about who we trust. He mentioned friendship groups, too, and how we might be broken up by the games. Before that, I’d never thought about how Leo and Becca and I could all be on separate teams. Now, I feel like I have no friends in the world but you. I feel alone.”

“Oh, Nikita,” Masha breathed, smiling softly. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry that happened to you. You don’t deserve this.”

Something in her face made Nikita sob into his arms, trying as hard as he could to not let people hear him. After a couple of minutes, he looked up into her eyes.

“Thanks for making me cry,” he said. “That made me feel better. I feel like I just needed a break from it all. So anyway, today we basically studied roles in preparation for tomorrow.”

“Ooh, fun! If you could pick your role right now, what would you pick?”

Nikita smiled. “Probably the, uh…Escort. I want to be a town role, but I don’t want to have a lot of responsibility. You know how much I hate being important.”

“Yeah.”

Behind Masha, the front door opened.

“Oh, hi, Dad!” Masha called off-screen. “I’m talking to Nikita! Come here!”

“Nikita?”

The voice was unmistakably his dad’s, and Nikita’s heart overflowed with pain and happiness. He suddenly wanted to run through the computer screen, all the way to where he knew his family was, and jump up and wrap them in a hug.

His dad, however, did the deed for him. If he wasn’t so happy, then the image of a businessman running with his briefcase would have made him laugh out loud.

“Nikita! Oh, son, I’ve missed you so much. I don’t think I’ve seen you for _months._ ”

“I wish I could see you in real life,” Nikita said sadly.

“Me too, son. But I’m just glad I’m seeing you in the first place. Oh, we have so much to catch up on! Tell me _everything._ ”

“What do you mean by _everything?”_ Nikita wondered.

“Start from the very beginning. Start from the moment that you couldn’t see my car anymore.”

Nikita’s mind wandered to that moment. It felt good to let his thoughts leave the Capital and go back home to his family, back when the games were postponed and everything was happy and things were simple. After the car had disappeared, Masha had suddenly announced that she was very hungry, so Nikita had volunteered to make dinner. If he remembered correctly – and he usually did – he had made spaghetti and meatballs, one of his mother’s favorite foods, which they ate just like a normal family. Nikita, though, had accidentally made a meal for four, so his mother had driven around town and eventually given it to a homeless dude. That night, all three of them had stayed up late rewatching BBC’s War and Peace, something that they liked to do in their history-hating dad’s absence. Nikita told as much to his dad, and he saw him smile wistfully, tears pooling at the edges of his green eyes.

“I’ve missed so much, Nik,” he whispered.

“Oh, no, you haven’t. These eight months were calm. Nothing much happened.”

“I don’t just mean that. I mean in general. I’ve missed so much of being part of a family. I’ve given all of that up to my work and nothing more. I haven’t seen you in forever. And I’d like to apologize to you.”

Nikita smiled. “Thank you, Dad. Thank you for telling me this.”

“Of course, _mon prince._ ”

“I have to go to dinner soon. I’m sorry we couldn’t talk more. I promise I’ll call you as soon as I can, all right?”

“That’s no problem. Good luck with dinner. They serve good food in the Capital, I hope.”

“Oh, they do, don’t worry. I wouldn’t say it’s as ‘divine’ as people make it out to be, but it’s good.”

“When should I expect you to call me again?”

“When are you free?”

“I’m not working at all. Don’t worry. I’m on vacation. Whenever _you’re_ free.”

Nikita frowned and ran through the calendar of the next few weeks. “Well, after dinner, I could call you again, but not for long because we’ll have to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll have all morning, but after lunch, we’ll get our roles and go down to the arena. We won’t be able to use any electronic devices whatsoever until after the games are over.”

 _If I survive that,_ he thought. But he didn’t want his father to know his worries.

“Well, I’ll be waiting.”

“Thanks, Dad. I, uh, actually have to go now. See you later?”

“See you later.”

 

Dinner, just like the night before, was given at a circular table. Leo informed him when he came down that the group had tried unsuccessfully to piece it apart just like they had at lunch, and now, they were resorting to sitting on the floor with their meals. One would be hard-pressed to find the only group of two – Sarai and Patrice – as the rest were trying to avoid each other as much as they could.

“I’m going to, uh, get my food,” Nikita said uncomfortably.

“Oh, we already got our food. Want to sit with us?”

Nikita was silent. He, in fact, _did_ want to sit with them, but something inside of him was telling him that it was a bad idea.

“Nik, I understand that the guy might have had an influence on you. He had an influence on all of us, as you can see. But the chances of all three of us surviving on the same team were already fairly low. So let’s enjoy our friendship while we can, all right? Lord knows it’s what the Capital wants from us.”

“I’ll sit with you,” Nikita whispered. His breaths were slow and quiet as he stared ahead. “I’ll sit with you, Leo and Becca. I’m sorry about brushing you off earlier. That was a dick move.”

Leo placed a hand on Nikita’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right! I get why you did it. Just promise not to ruin our friendship over fucked up death games again.”

Nikita laughed. “I’ll try.”

“Peace?”

“Peace.”

They fist-bumped to seal the deal. In that moment, Nikita realized that he actually needed to get his food and realized that it had already been laid out for him on the table. The table would probably be more comfortable than being on the floor, he thought, wondering why everyone else had chosen not to sit at it.

“Leo! Becca!” he called.

His two friends got up from their meals and walked over to him.

“What is it, Nik?” Becca asked.

“Since no one’s sitting at the table, do you want to claim it? I know it’ll feel super empty with just us sitting at it, but it’s more comfortable than the floor, I’d say.”

Becca nodded. “That’s a good idea, actually. Wait here a second while I get my food.”

She and Leo walked over to where they had been sitting and scooped up their plates before coming back over and sitting down on either side of Nikita.

“So what did you do after classes?” Becca asked him.

“Oh, not much. I just reviewed my notes and called my family at home. My dad finally came back from one of his business trips.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Leo said brightly. “How long was he away?”

“A couple of months. He’ll leave again in two weeks.”

Leo winced. “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah. I don’t really see him much, to be honest. He’s always away on his business trips. ‘cause he has a big job with the Capital or something. My mom has a much smaller job, so we see her more often. She lives with us, actually.”

Nikita paused. “Actually, he _would_ refuse the job or the trips, but…you know.”

All three of them knew what he meant without his having to say it. It was generally a bad idea to refuse the Capital anything.

“What about you guys?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” Becca answered. “Just, you know, reading a book in my room.”

“Oh, fun! What book?”

“I don’t even remember the name. It’s so awful that I’m trying to purge it from my memory.”

“Then why are you reading it?” Leo asked.

“Well, the thing is that for my birthday a couple of months ago, I asked everyone to give me their favorite book, along with a note on the front cover or something about why they like it. My aunt gave me a book of some sort that she said she would always read when she was upset because it was relaxing, and I took it with me to read. It’s _horrible._ The author doesn’t know how to write well.”

“Maybe she’s nostalgic for it,” Leo suggested. “Nostalgia sometimes makes people look at things through rose-tinted glasses. I remember I used to love the _Benny Baby_ cartoons, but I rewatched them once while I was at a rough point in my life and realized how _awful_ they were.”

“Nostalgia is honestly the only reason why anyone could consider this book good,” Becca said with furrowed eyebrows. “Hey Nik, is there anything that _you_ used to like and then realized was horrible?”

“Not really,” Nikita confessed. “I didn’t really watch cartoons as a kid, and now, the only thing I’m really obsessed with is period dramas. But honestly, if I was at your party, I’d give you a copy of _Pride and Prejudice._ I don’t care if it’s a ‘girly’ thing, it’s one of my favorite books ever.”

“Aw, Nikkie,” Leo said with a smile, patting Nikita on the shoulder. “You’re a sap at heart, aren’t you?”

“Please don’t call me Nikkie, it sounds a lot like a girl’s name, and…yeah.”

“Oh, sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“It’s all good. But yeah. I’m a _huge_ sap. My sister Masha likes to tease me about it. Any of you guys saps?”

“A little,” Becca admitted.

“Not really,” Leo sighed. “I mean, I’ll watch them sometimes for my dads or whatever, but I’m not really into them.”

“I got you. So, what do you like to do in your free time?”

“Solve math problems, mainly. Read books. I really like math. Someday, I want to try and be a mathematician.”

His eyes were already glowing, and it looked as if he needed a switch pulled inside of him to burst out about his passion. Nikita decided to pull it.

“What do you like about math?”

“Oh…”

Leo spent the rest of the evening talking about his passion, and when the trio had to break up and go back to their rooms, Nikita left realizing that he knew his friend better than he ever had in his life.


	3. William and Stephen, Part 1

“I hear the games are going to begin tomorrow.”

William and Stephen were sitting on Stephen's bed, aimlessly reading one of the few books they had been given to pass the time. After their excursion to print out the role list, they were taking a break from adventure.

“Oh, really?” Stephen asked. “Already? I didn’t expect it to be so soon.”

“Well, it is, apparently. I heard people talking about it.”

“Do we know who the contestants are yet?”

“As far as I know, no. But there might be people who do.”

“Well, I’m not too interested in finding out,” Stephen admitted. “Seems a lot like adventure to me. I’m tired.”

He flopped down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. William picked up a lock of Stephen's brown hair with his slender fingers.

“Your hair is so long,” he observed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it like this.”

Stephen sat up and looked over at him. “Well, there’s not a barber here. Of course it’s going to be long. Why’s yours so short?”

William looked at him for a second, confused, before realizing and bursting into giggles. “I went to the barber’s.”

“There _is_ no barber, Will. Unless there’s an unofficial operation or something? Like some guy secretly giving people haircuts? In which case, count me in.”

“No. There _is_ a barber. In the second block. I think it’s two Kindness Tokens per haircut.”

Kindness Tokens in the prison were given out based on good behavior that showed one as a good citizen of the Capital. They could then be redeemed for various services such as good food, new clothes, and, apparently, haircuts.

“And _why_ didn’t you tell me this before?” Stephen asked in mock anger. “You saw my hair grow out for the past eight months and didn’t even _tell_ me about the fact that there was a barber?”

“I thought you liked having long hair. It looks good on you. Maybe you were, like, experimenting or something.”

Stephen brushed his hair back with one hand. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve complained to you about it. C’mon, Will. No need to lie.”

William looked as if he were hardly containing his giggles. “I must have missed them. I’m sorry, Stephen. I’ll take you there later.”

“Okay,” Stephen said, eyes narrowing. At this, William finally rolled back on his bed, laughing so hysterically that he could hardly breathe, arms and legs flailing as if he were a beetle who had been put on its shell.

“What’s so funny?” Stephen asked, knowing the answer already.

William could hardly force the words out of himself. “I…I heard you telling me about how much you hated your hair.”

“Yeah, and?”

“I didn’t tell you about the barber because…”

“Because?” Stephen prompted.

“Because you have a _man bun!”_

Stephen jumped back. “I do _not.”_

“Then what do you call it when you get that hairtie out of your pocket and tie your hair back when you go eat or whatever?”

Stephen frowned but said nothing.

“Where’d you even get that hairtie from, anyway?” William continued to tease, sitting up and poking his friend in the shoulder.

“I don’t even know, honestly,” Stephen admitted. “I just found it in my pocket one day while digging for the Kindness Token that I’d forgotten to take out. I’m guessing it’s Angelica’s. It’s really stretchy, and she told me that she buys stretchy ones to fit her poufy hair.”

“Angelica.”

William drooped down, looking like a wilting flower, and stared at the bedspread under him.

“She still hasn’t been caught,” Stephen said quietly. “Where do you think she is?”

“If she’s smart,” William mused, “she’s gotten as far away from the capital as she can. Maybe she went to her father, but I doubt it, since people would know who she is instantly, and they’d look there first.”

“Or maybe she left the country. You can sneak abroad if you know the right people, and Angie’s a smart girl. If anyone could manage it, it’d be her.”

“You’re right. I’m honestly hoping that she did that. I hear Canada is good for escapees.”

“Yep. Oh man, Will, you’ve kept me talking so much that I completely forgot to go get a haircut. Do you know where my Kindness Tokens are?”

William smirked and glanced shiftily at the mattress.

“…William?”

More smirking.

“William, can you hear me?”

“I think you put your wallet in the closet or something. I’m not sure. But don’t you want to wear Angelica’s hairtie? I’m sure she’d be proud of the two of you sharing a connection.”

Stephen, who was going down the ladder that led down from the top bunk, stopped in his tracks and looked up in thought. His eyebrows furrowed together, lips parted slightly, and he lifted one hand to examine the hairtie that he had wrapped around one wrist.

“I guess you’re right,” he said eventually. “I miss Angie. And this is the best I can do. Now can you _please_ give me back my Kindness Tokens?”

Silently, William reached under the mattress, pulled out the plastic bag wallet that had STEPHEN PERRAULT on it in black Sharpie, and tossed it in his friend’s direction.

“What do you need them for?” he asked.

“Just gonna get more hairties and maybe a Popsicle. You can come with me if you want. No, no, don’t get your wallet. I’ll buy for you. It’s what friends do.”

Smiling gratefully, William climbed down the ladder from his bed. Hurriedly, he brushed his short hair with one of the cheap plastic brushes they had been given and grabbed his prison ID card.

“I don’t think I’ll be growing my hair out,” William admitted. “My hair is really thick and hard to clean, and it’ll be even harder when it’s long. Your hair is a lot thinner than mine.”

“That’s fine,” Stephen said, scanning his ID card and pushing the door open. “There’s more than one way to honor her.”

“Thanks.”

The two friends left the room together.


	4. Day 1

**Day 1**

The next day, after lunch, the fifteen contestants were ordered to leave their dorms and go outside, where a small helicopter would take them to the arena. After a quick call to his family, and after scooping up the chocolate chip cookies and the pillowcase Masha had embroidered, Nikita obeyed.

The ride was short and silent. From the window, Nikita could see the arena, set in the middle of woods but enclosed by a bubble that he had learned was impenetrable. Above the circle of fifteen houses and the gallows in its middle were fifteen soundproof bubbles.

At random, each of them was assigned a number and sent to it. There, they were to put on headphones – a safety precaution – and receive their roles and their wristbands for private chats.

 

_NIKITA, you are a Transporter. You are to swap two targets per night and redirect attacks at one to the other._

The boy laughed. It was the only thing he could think to do to help him through his fear.

“I’m trans in two different ways, I guess. I just wish I were riding a bicycle for the extra puns.”

The bubble sent him down.

 

_SARAI, you are a Retributionist. You may revive one deceased town role per game._

The girl smiled but said nothing. The game didn’t know it yet, and neither did anyone else, but she had resolved to help as many people as she could.

The bubble sent her down.

 

_SEAN, you are the Mafioso. You are to complete the Godfather’s orders unless he or she dies, in which case you will become the Godfather._

The boy looked at the screen in front of him. He didn’t have power, but he didn’t need it. Even without the ability to order his team around, he would bring them to victory for sure.

“Good luck to me.”

The bubble sent him down.

 

_LEONID, you are a Veteran. You may go on alert three times per game and kill anyone who visits you._

The boy was terrified. But terror would not be a new emotion for him.

“Bring it on.”

The bubble sent him down.

 

_REBECCA, you are a Consort. You work for the Mafia, and you may prevent one person per night from performing his or her nightly duty._

The girl couldn’t believe she was part of the Mafia. And she was surprised by the fact that she didn’t care at all. She just hoped that her friends were roles that she could win with.

The bubble sent her down.

 

_DANIEL, you are an Investigator. Every night, you may check someone, and the system will give you three possible roles._

“I’ll serve the town well.”

The space was silent, and the boy felt like he needed to say something to fill it.

The bubble sent him down.

 

_AIDAN, you are a Sheriff. Every night, you may check someone, and the system will tell you whether he or she is part of the Mafia or not._

The boy’s face was twisted into its perpetual frown.

“Hmph. I’ll take that.”

The bubble sent him down.

 

_CELESTINE, you are the Godfather. You will give orders to the entire Mafia._

The girl smiled. In her situation, most would feel afraid, but she was not afraid. She had promised herself that she would not be afraid until the games were over.

“Okay.”

The bubble sent her down.

 

_PATRICE, you are the Jailor. You can detain one person per night for questioning and execute him or her if you so wish._

The girl had always hidden herself behind confidence about her abilities. But now, her heart pumped quickly against her chest in adrenaline and fear.

“I can do this. I can do this.”

The bubble sent her down.

 

_JAY, you are a Spy. You have the ability to listen to private messages and Mafia chats._

The boy didn’t know how to feel about that. He just wanted to live until the end of the game.

“I’ll take that.”

The bubble sent him down.

 

_CAITLIN, you are a Witch. You may control people’s actions and force them to target other players, including yourself._

The girl nodded. Supposedly, witches had a fairly low win rate in the simulator, but she had always been called a bright young girl. Surely that would count for something.

“Of course.”

The bubble sent her down.

 

_RACHEL, you are an Amnesiac. You must pick a non-unique graveyard role and fulfill its objectives in order to win._

And the girl would try her hardest to win.

 _No,_ she thought. She _would_ win.

The bubble sent her down.

 

_EMILY, you are an Arsonist. You may douse and light on fire those who might oppose you._

The girl smirked. That wouldn’t be a problem for her at all.

The bubble sent her down.

 

_BENJAMIN, you are a Bodyguard. Every night, you may guard one person or use a bulletproof vest, and if someone attacks whomever you are guarding, you and the attacker die._

The boy’s eyes widened. He was terrified, so terrified, of death.

But he wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not until everything was over.

The bubble sent him down.

 

_AMELIA, you are a Werewolf. On even-numbered nights, you may go on a rampage at anyone’s house, killing them and anyone who visits them._

The girl couldn’t help it. She fell to the ground and crumpled into a sob.

The bubble sent her down.

 

Everyone arrived to the plaza. Crying, smirking, or standing completely still, it didn’t matter. The games would come for them all. And whether they were alive to witness the end depended on them and them only.

An automated voice sounded through the arena.

_“The night will now begin.”_

**Night 1**

_Jailor: Hello there!_

_Jailor: Role, please?_

Patrice sat at the desk in front of the computer screen, legs resting next to the keyboard as she typed. From her house, she had grabbed the coffee maker and some beans, and she sipped on coffee that probably had more cream than one person could take as she waited for a response.

_AIDAN: Why should I tell you?_

Patrice raised an eyebrow.

“Jesus Christ,” she said to herself. “This kid is insufferable.”

_Jailor: …because I’m the Jailor? What kind of a question is this?_

_AIDAN: A reasonable one. You heard what the guy said. We can’t trust anyone._

_Jailor: I’m literally confirmed town you dumbass_

_Jailor: Unless you want to get executed tomorrow, role. Now._

Patrice’s pen, held in her right hand, hovered over the piece of paper on which she was writing her will.

_AIDAN: Fine. I’m the Sheriff. You roleblocked the Sheriff on the first night._

_Jailor: Thanks_

Patrice scribbled down the claim. Just as she was about to stand up and finally go to bed, the computer dinged with another message.

_AIDAN: Now that I’ve told you my role, you should tell me who you are._

_Jailor: haha no thanks I don’t know for sure who you are yet_

_AIDAN: hmm_

_Jailor: good night_

Patrice grumbled to herself as she packed up her things. She honestly didn’t know how she was going to deal with this guy for the next week or so.

 

“Hello there! I’m your friendly local Transporter, and I’m here to ask you to please get into the vehicle! Put on the blindfold in the back, grab some snacks, and lean back!”

Nikita spoke through a voice distorter and wore a mask, so that no one in the golf cart knew who he was. The blindfolds, apparently, were so his passengers didn’t know each other. The snacks were just his own addition. If he was going to be the friendly Uber driver, he might as well give himself five stars.

Leo Petrov, role unknown, stepped into the car nervously.

“Uh, who are you?” he asked.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out! I’m not allowed to tell you. Sorry, man.”

“It’s all good.”

Nikita drove Leo to Ben’s house and guided him out of the vehicle before beckoning Ben to come in.

“Hello there!” he repeated. “I’m your friendly local Transporter-”

“I could guess that,” Ben joked. “Anything I need to do?”

“Nope! Just put on that blindfold and let me drive you to your new home!”

“I just hope you’re not screwing me over, dude. Or dudette. Whatever.”

“Me too, darling.”

Nikita drove Ben over to Leo’s house and patted him on the back to get him to come out.

“Good night, Ben!” he said cheerfully.

“Good night, mysterious stranger!”

Under the guise of nighttime, Nikita drove the car back to his house and parked it in the secret garage. Then, he walked over to the computer on his wall and pressed his finger to the sensor.

_LEONID and BENJAMIN have been swapped. Your automatic sleeping gas will activate in five seconds._

“Good night, town,” Nikita whispered, flopping down onto his bed.

He would have a long day ahead of him tomorrow.

 

“Well, that was weird,” Ben said aloud as soon as he arrived to his mysterious new house. It was too dark to tell whose it was – on purpose, according to their lessons. They weren’t supposed to know.

“I guess I can pick someone to guard now.”

He had been given a double-sided fist sleeve. One punch would kill someone instantly, but as a result, a shock would pass through his body and kill him as well. If one of them had been given a pill by a Doctor, however, then that person would survive the night.

“Unlikely,” Ben said aloud. “I’m the Town Protective here. If I die, I die.”

He decided to guard Rachel. She had a nice name and a nice face, so he could justify his choice with that, but mostly, he had just picked someone at random.

But no one came to her house that night. He wasn’t sure whether to be sad or relieved.

 

Amelia found it hard to feel lucky in the position that she was right now. Not only was she forced to be a neutral role, isolated from everyone else once more, but she would have to kill to survive. She, a girl who had always been considered sweet, the kind of person who would never hurt a fly, who cried during biology dissections, would have to kill in cold blood.

But she forced herself to feel lucky anyway. She would have the first night to recover, at least. If she was the Arsonist or Serial Killer, she wouldn’t even get that.

So she lay down on the floor of her living room, staring up at the flickering lights of the ceiling, trying her hardest to breathe. To calm her panic. To let herself be carried away.

Something made her lose herself…lose control…she was no longer in control…not quite asleep…Amelia didn’t understand what was happening, but she didn’t understand much at all. All that she knew was that it was good to let go.

 

Caitlin let Amelia go home from Daniel’s house. In her will, she wrote that Amelia was the Sheriff, the Executioner, or the Werewolf.

Only she knew the truth. Only she knew that she had found her first possible ally.

And only she, and Amelia, and any other witches, would rise above everything and everyone.

 

Rebecca had checked her wristband as soon as the bubble sent her down into arena. Just as quickly, she learned that neither Leo nor Nikita were on her Mafia. Rather, her teammates were Mafioso Sean and Godfather Celestine, neither of whom she actually knew that well.

 _Oh, well,_ she thought to herself as she headed towards the secret Mafia meeting place. _Maybe they’re both Witches or something. We can still win together. I’ll just shoot them a private message or something later._

With this in mind, she pushed the door open and headed inside. It very much had an abandoned warehouse feel, with a computer in the middle of the room and microphones planted all around.

“For the spy,” Sean explained when he saw her looking. “Welcome to the team, Patrice.”

“Oh my Jesus Christ!” Celestine shrieked, clamping a hand over his mouth. “Don’t use names here! We have a spy, remember?”

“Oh. Sorry, Rachel. I won’t do it again.”

_“Jesus fucking Christ! How are you on our team?”_

Rebecca smiled as she watched her teammates mock argue, knowing full well that they both had smirks on their faces.

“So, uh, what do I do?” she asked.

“Your ability doesn’t really matter yet,” Sean said. “So just, uh, do whatever. We’ll decide who to kill in a second.”

“I got you.”

Celestine had been standing to the side during this exchange. Now, though, she stepped forward to the computer and placed her finger to its scanner.

_CELESTINE, choose somebody to kill._

Without hesitation, she chose the name _DANIEL_ from the list.

“That all right with you guys?” she asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Sean said with a smile. Together, they watched him take the gun from its holster and leave. As soon as he was outside the door, Becca went to the computer and pressed her own finger to the detector.

_REBECCA, choose someone to roleblock._

_EMILY,_ she chose at random, glancing over at Celestine before she made her choice.

“Is that okay?” she asked, though her voice was so timid that it almost went unheard.

“Yeah,” Celestine said dismissively. “It doesn’t really matter at this point in the games anyway. You’ll be important later, when we figure out who the Jailor is and whatnot.”

“I see. Well, I guess that’s it for us. Good night?”

“Good night.”

With a feeble wave, Becca left the meeting place and headed back to her house. Celestine, wrapped in a black cloak, watched her retreating figure before leaving on her own.

 

That night, sitting at his screen, Daniel chose Emily’s name to investigate. His will was open on his desk, pen sitting on it and ready to write. He went to sleep in peace, knowing that no matter what the results were, he would be bringing good to the town.

In the morning, he could barely glimpse the fact that she was Bodyguard, Godfather, or Arsonist. But he didn’t stay alive long enough to write it down.

 

_A member of the Mafia visited EMILY last night!_

_A member of the Mafia visited DANIEL last night!_

Just before the bell buzzed to signify the next day, Jay scribbled down the visits in his will, along with the fact that they had said that the Random Mafia’s role wasn’t important yet.

The fake names he made a point not to write down. He would be absolutely stupid if he truly believed them. And the last thing that anyone could be in these games was stupid.

What he had done – tracking down the Mafia’s words and actions – was pretty much his only role in the game. It was a small one, and it had very little use, but it existed nonetheless.

And he would use it as well as he could to bring himself to survival.

 


	5. Day 2

**Day 2**

_DANIEL died last night. He was killed by a member of the Mafia._

_We found a will next to his body._

Daniel the Investigator

N1 – Emily

_DANIEL’s role was Investigator._

“Well, there goes Town Investigative,” Patrice said out loud brightly. “And our Neutral Killing is either Werewolf, Arsonist, or a Serial Killer trying to trick us into thinking he’s one of those.”

“So basically,” Aidan deadpanned, “our Neutral Killing is Werewolf, Arsonist, or Serial Killer. Thanks for stating the obvious, idiot.”

He glanced over at Nikita, expecting to get a delighted smirk but instead getting a face made of stone.

“Stop fighting!” Rachel pleaded.

“Yeah,” Leo burst in. “We can’t divide ourselves already. We need to work together and find the info as fast as we can.”

His announcement brought the arena into hushed silence. Frantically, Caitlin opened her keypad to Amelia’s name, staring at it for a long time to figure out how to begin. She wasn’t sure if there was a Spy or Blackmailer, but there probably was, and as such, she had to be careful with how she chose to speak.

_From CAITLIN to AMELIA: Help me and I help you?_

Above the arena appeared an alert.

_CAITLIN is whispering to AMELIA._

“What are you saying?” Patrice asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“Oh, just offering an alliance,” Caitlin said nonchalantly with a wave of her hand. “You know, a gesture of friendship.”

“You could have said that out loud,” Aidan said derisively. “You’re acting very suspicious right now.”

“So are you. What are you, a Jester?”

“Guys, stop it!” Leo shouted. “She hasn’t done anything suspicious other than whispering. Leave her alone.”

Caitlin graced him with a smile. She would have to control him as soon as she could to see if he was someone who could be trusted. Across the arena, she saw Amelia examine her wrist in confusion.

_JAY is whispering to EMILY._

_From JAY to EMILY: I’m the Spy. The Random Mafia visited you last night. Did anything bad happen to you?_

 “Remember, guys,” Celestine said firmly. “Whispering is not inherently suspicious. More often than not, it’s just townies exchanging information. The Mafia has its own chat. Remember our lessons and don’t lose your heads, okay?”

It was the first time that the girl had spoken. To Nikita, she had such a confident façade that he couldn’t imagine her speaking at all, and he nearly jumped back in shock when he saw her mouth open.

“Hmmph,” Aidan grumbled.

 

_AMELIA is whispering to CAITLIN._

_From AMELIA to CAITLIN: no_

_CAITLIN is whispering to AMELIA._

_From CAITLIN to AMELIA: You know who I am. I propose an alliance._

_AMELIA is whispering to CAITLIN._

_From AMELIA to CAITLIN: I refuse it_

_EMILY is whispering to JAY._

_From EMILY to JAY: Well, I got roleblocked. So I’m guessing it’s a Consort._

_JAY is whispering to EMILY._

_From JAY to EMILY: Okay, cool, thanks!_

_EMILY is whispering to JAY._

_From EMILY to JAY: No problem!_

 

Jay frantically scribbled notes down on his will. He wouldn’t push anything, but if anyone was confirmed as town, he would show them what he had written. He was no expert, but surely, what he had found would help at least somewhat.

“Any leads?” he asked the town out loud, still feeling the exhilaration that came from doing something useful.

The town was silent. Jay took this to be a no and was about to return to his wristband before he looked over at Aidan, whose face was carved into a frown that was more intense than usual.

“I would have leads,” he snapped, “but I got jailed on the first night. I’m a Sheriff, by the way. Confirmed town.”

“You’re not confirmed yet,” Patrice protested.

Aidan looked over at her and smiled, sarcastically but widely. “Neither are you.”

“I never said I was.”

“You guys!” Leo burst out.

“What?” Nikita asked him.

“ _Stop fighting!_ Tell me if you guys have any leads! Also, the guy said that fighting is suspicious because it usually means that whoever’s riling it up is trying to hold off the town and buy herself – or himself – time. And it does delay the town. So stop it, Aidan.”

Nikita looked around at his companions in the games. In the crowd, he saw Sarai smile gratefully. She guessed that she was a person who was made deeply uncomfortable by conflict and therefore was probably feeling immense relief. He guessed correctly, from what he could see; Patrice walked up to her and wrapped her arms around her from behind, squeezing her warmly and tightly.

“Any other leads?” Celestine asked, glancing over at Patrice. “Besides little Dickhead Jones over here?”

“My last name is Tibbits, not Jones. Are you dumb or something?”

“Anyway, I was transported last night,” Leo said loudly and pointedly. “So we have a Transporter. Who was I transported with?”

“Me,” Ben said cheerily, raising his hand as if he were in school. “I was transported, too. Unless there are two Transporters.”

“Two Transporters?” Celestine asked warily.

“It’s possible,” Patrice told her. “Two Town Support slots. There can even be four, if you count the Random Town and Any.”

Celestine’s eyes widened in exaggerated shock. “Wow. That would fuck games up really hard.”

“So unless anyone else was transported,” Leo said, “can Sheriffs, Investigators, and the like change results between myself and Ben Solo over there?”

“My last name is Chapiro, actually. “

“But you get the reference, right? Oh, God, please tell me you get the reference. I don’t want to be in the same arena as someone who doesn’t get the reference.”

Ben smiled. “I get the reference, don’t worry. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t?”

“An awful one. Simply awful.”

“Are we gonna lynch anyone today?” Sean asked. Everyone looked at him in surprise; this outburst was the first time that they had heard him speak since the games had started.

From across the crowd, Nikita saw Sarai shiver and Patrice hug her tightly. Becca glared at him and placed a hand on her hip.

“No, we aren’t! Why would we do that? You heard everyone, we have no leads. No one’s role is confirmed at all!”

“Yeah,” Leo burst in. “Doing anything drastic is a bad idea at this point. Maybe we’ll satisfy your, uh, weird bloodthirst later in the games. But not now.”

_NIKITA is whispering to LEONID._

_From NIKITA to LEONID: I think Aidan is a Jester, what about you?_

_LEONID is whispering to NIKITA._

_From LEONID to NIKITA: Yeah, I think you’re right. Don’t say it out loud, though. I don’t want him to catch on._

Nikita stared down at his wristband and smiled wistfully. For now, at least, he and his friend had some sort of relationship of trust. Wondering how long it would last, and feeling a kind of warmth inside of his body, he picked Becca’s name out on his wristband.

_NIKITA is whispering to REBECCA._

_From NIKITA to REBECCA: I think Aidan is a Jester. There’s honestly no explanation otherwise for how he’s acting right now._

_REBECCA is whispering to NIKITA._

_From REBECCA to NIKITA: I never thought about that, actually! That’s a good explanation, haha. I hope someone gets rid of him before he starts getting in the way of the town!_

Nikita looked at the message, then across the arena at Becca. She stood alone, hands nonchalantly in her pockets, and smiled in his direction.

How did she already go so far? He could still remember when she was a little schoolgirl with long brown hair, kind and gentle, and not this… _creature_  who talked about getting rid of people who got in the way. He was tempted to ask her for her role – she had to be evil, she had to be evil – but he realized in a flash that he didn’t want to know at all.

“Stop whispering, for God’s sake!” Aidan burst out. “Anything you want to say, you can say out loud.”

Nikita’s head was spinning. Everything seemed to be happening all at once, his inner thoughts mixing with those of the rest of the town, and Aidan’s asshattery wasn’t helping matters at all.

“What if we don’t want evils to know?” he snapped frustratedly. “What if it’s important information that we want to exchange, and we don’t want the Mafia to find out and come for us because of it? Have you ever thought about that, Dickhead Tubbins or whatever?”

“Tibbits. And you know that.”

“I don’t care what your last name is. All I care about is whether or not you’re a dick. And if anyone’s a dick in this arena, it’s you.”

“Both of you, stop!” Sarai pleaded, speaking for the first time since the games had started. “Please! I hate watching people fight, and this isn’t helping anyone at all!”

"Yeah, leave him alone, Aidan," Patrice snapped. "Seriously. Stop being a dick just for the sake of being a dick."

Aidan opened his mouth to protest, and it seemed to Nikita as if he was going to say something. But then, to his surprise, Celestine stepped forward behind Patrice and Sarai and wrapped her arms around them.

"Leave them alone," she said sternly. She had an authoritative tone, so intense that everyone in the arena fell silent, and Aidan closed his mouth and looked down at his feet.

Celestine looked over at her two new friends and grinned.

"Now apologize to everyone in the arena for having to deal with your annoying presence."

"I'm sorry for my annoying presence," Aidan mumbled.

"Louder, please."

"I'M SORRY FOR MY ANNOYING PRESENCE!"

"Very good. Anything else anyone wants to say? Anything important? Any reasonable suspicions?"

"I'm Investigator," Emily said. "I was roleblocked last night, though, and Jay says the Random Mafia visited me. So that means that the Random Mafia is a Consort. Be on the lookout for Escort claims, y'all."

"Well, that's second Town Investigative and Random Town out of the way," Celestine said. "Assuming Jay is a spy here."

"Supposedly out of the way," Patrice pointed out.

"You're right. We have no reason to doubt them, though. Not yet."

"We'll wait and see, I guess. Want to take a break for now? We can come back later."

The whole town agreed to leave the arena and rest at home. Solving murder mysteries was pretty stressful stuff.

As soon as she opened the door to her house, Caitlin pulled out her wristband and placed her hand in front of her. She knew now that Jay could hear her, and she would need to be careful with her words, but more importantly than that, she needed an ally.

_CAITLIN is whispering to AMELIA._

_From CAITLIN to AMELIA: Why don't you want an alliance with me? You know who I am. And I know you know._

_AMELIA is whispering to CAITLIN._

_From AMELIA to CAITLIN: don't want allies here_

_JAY is whispering to CAITLIN._

_From JAY to CAITLIN: I can read your messages. What do you mean when you say that she knows who you are?_

Shit. It was too early in the games for Caitlin to ward off possible suspicion, especially for someone who was all but confirmed as town. If Amelia kept building up a stone wall for some unexplainable reason, she would have to give up and try someone new.

_CAITLIN is whispering to JAY._

_From CAITLIN to JAY: We knew each other before the games. I was always the "smart one" in class and stuff. I don't know why she's refusing to side with me._

_CAITLIN is whispering to JAY._

_From CAITLIN to JAY: I'm the Investigator, by the way. I know it's unlikely, but I guess I'm the Any. Or someone here is lying._

_JAY is whispering to CAITLIN._

_From JAY to CAITLIN: Okay. Thanks for telling me this._

Caitlin exited out of the chat box with Jay and began talking to Amelia.

_CAITLIN is whispering to AMELIA._

_From CAITLIN to AMELIA: Tell me why. I'd be a good ally. Please._

_AMELIA is whispering to CAITLIN._

_From AMELIA to CAITLIN: none of your fucking business. leave me alone already._

Caitlin glared at the wristband frustratedly. Amelia was making it needlessly harder on both of them, and she knew it. At first thought, Caitlin was tempted to keep trying to convince her, but she realized quickly that it would probably look bad on her. Instead, she closed the chat box, picked up one of the few books on the shelves in their provided houses, and began to read.

 

Amelia closed the chat box with Caitlin and sighed. Now that it was over, she felt a pang of guilt at treating the girl so rudely, but it was too late already to go back and apologize. And besides, if she did, then Caitlin would think that she wanted an alliance after all.

Cait seemed like a nice enough girl. They had gone to the same school back home, though their lives had rarely intersected, and Amelia always saw her lugging around a bunch of books. What shocked her was that they weren't just textbooks, but books for pleasure as well; Caitlin was one of those rare people who genuinely enjoyed learning as much as she could about the world. In other words, she was the perfect ally in games like these. And a Neutral Killing role needed allies.

But Amelia was tired of bad friends. In the past, she had been hurt over and over again, by friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and family and total strangers, all of whom used her friendship to pick themselves up and knock her down. And now, she was trapped in a system where she had to do the same.

Amelia didn't want to kill to survive. She would rather die. And most importantly, she didn't want to throw anyone under the bus to bring herself to victory.

She picked up her wristband once more and examined the list of names. Somewhere here, there was a Sheriff who could out her as a Werewolf. Somewhere here, there was a Jailor who could disbelieve her transparent Medium claim and put her under the ax. Somewhere here, there was a group of townies examining her with narrowed eyes, exposing her for who she really was, and bringing her to the gallows for a lynching, unaware that they were doing exactly what she wanted them to.

 _Please,_  she thought to herself.  _Please let it come as soon as it can. I don't even care how._

Amelia suddenly remembered that it was Day 2. Tonight, she would turn into a vicious beast and maul whomever she wanted to. But every single bone of her body was pulling her against it.

 _I'll stay home,_  she decided finally.  _I won't kill anyone just by staying at home. Unless they come to me for whatever reason._

She was tired, so tired that she wanted to wrap herself up in blankets and sleep forever. But soon, she would be forced to participate in discussions and discussions and discussions.

 _Please let Caitlin find a better ally,_  she thought to herself finally.

The girl deserved one. Even if it wasn't Amelia, she needed someone to help her up to victory.

 

**Night 2**

_Jailor: Hey, there! Role?_

_CAITLIN: Investigator_

Patrice scribbled it down in her will, along with a note that raised alarm. After all, the arena was already overflowing with Town Investigatives, and this new claim wasn’t helping matters at all. Revealing her suspicions to the suspected, however, would do absolutely nothing to help either of them.

Instead, she wrote:

_Jailor: Will, please?_

Caitlin glared at the screen frustratedly. This goddamn Jailor was not only going to make her lose a night, but if her will wasn’t legit enough, then she would lead to her downfall. There was nothing left to do at this point but to pull the piece of paper out of her pocket and meticulously transcribe it.

_CAITLIN: Give me a second, don’t execute, please, I’m a slow typer_

_Jailor: No biggie! We have all night_

_CAITLIN: Caitlin the Investigator Night 1 – Amelia is Sheriff, Executioner, or Werewolf_

_CAITLIN: I didn’t think it was important, so I didn’t bring it up during discussions today_

_Jailor: Smart choice. If she claims something different, THEN we’ll have reason for alarm._

_Jailor: Thank you for this information. Carry on, dear._

_CAITLIN: You’re so nice! Are you by any chance Sarai?_

_Jailor: I might be! We’ll see!_

_CAITLIN: I can respect that. Good night!_

_Jailor: Good night!_

Caitlin was so much nicer than Aidan. Just having a conversation with her forced a sigh of relief out of Patrice’s heart. She hoped, hoped with all her heart, that she would turn out to be good.

 

“All right, pal, you know the drill! Get in, get comfy, and get ready to roll!”

The outline of Nikita’s smile showed through his mask as he looked at Ben with bright, cheerful eyes. Ben laughed but got into the back of the car and grabbed a bag of chips.

“Me again, Mr. Transporter Guy? Or Mrs. Transporter Girl, I guess. There’s no way to know.”

“Nope. No way at all. Don’t even try it, big boy.”

Nikita turned around to check that Ben had his blindfold on before pulling the golf cart into GO. As the younger boy munched on his chips, he took him to Celestine’s house.

“Hey there!” he called, cupping one hand around his mouth like a megaphone. “I’m your friendly local Transporter! Here to transport you with an anonymous person!”

The door swung open, and Celestine came out. A sleep mask was pulled up into her head, and her tired brown eyes stood out against her makeup-less face. As she got into the car, she ran a hurried hand through her messy black hair.

 _“Goddamn,_ I need coffee,” she mumbled. “Do you have coffee in your car?”

“You won’t need it. I’ll take you to this anonymous person’s house, and you’ll go right to sleep. Or you can use their coffee machine. This is gonna be a short ride.”

“If you say so.”

“Oh, and, uh, put on the blindfold, will you? It’s a requirement.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Transporter Guy.”

Nikita’s heart pumped when Celestine didn’t clarify with the opposite gender like Ben had. “How do you know if I’m a guy or a girl?”

“Just a hunch. Doesn’t really matter, Mr. Transporter.”

“Whatever you say.”

Nikita slammed on the gas as fast as he could. He was terrified, deathly terrified, that Celestine had uncovered who he was, and he wanted to get rid of her as quickly as he could.

“Get out,” he panted when he arrived at Ben’s house. “We’re here. Go get your coffee or whatever. Not sure why you’d need it, you’re probably just gonna go to bed anyway, but whatever.”

“Thanks, Mr. Transporter,” Celestine mumbled, scrambling out.

“Any time.”

Nikita drove away before he could watch her leave.

 

Without much of a second thought, Ben strolled over to Emily’s house with his double-sided fist sleeve. He sat at her door for a long time, eyes closed and ear plugs in, so that he wouldn’t have to hear screams of terror or pain or frustration. He experienced enough of it during the daytime, and even though he could very well die every second, the night time was supposed to be his safe space.

But the next morning, both he and Emily were alive. And in spite of himself, he felt a pang of sadness bury itself in his chest.

Everyone else in the town was useful in some way. Only he, picking names at random and hoping they were attacked, served no purpose at all.

 

When Celestine strolled into the Mafia meeting place with a cup of black coffee in her hand, Becca and Sean were already there. Becca was sitting on the floor cross-legged, and Sean was standing on his knees and braiding her hair.

“Aw, friendship goals!” Celestine said cheerfully. “I’m glad you three are bonding as a Mafia team. C’mon, let’s go over to the screen. I have to show you something.”

The screen displayed a list of names, with only Becca, Celestine, and Sean grayed out and a blank space where Daniel once was. Celestine bent down slightly to point at Leo.

“Probably Veteran baiting,” she said out loud. “Don’t visit. Let’s pick someone else, guys.”

Sean pointed at Jay.

“I got Spy vibes from him. Maybe we should get him?”

“It’s our only lead, to be honest,” Becca said. “Let’s go for it.”

Celestine picked the name, but Sean, instead of leaving, stood with his gun at the door.

“Pick Amelia,” he said to Becca. “She’s quiet, and important town roles are usually quiet.”

“Okay.”

Becca scanned her finger and picked Amelia’s name out of the list. Sean, satisfied, opened the door and sneaked out.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” Celestine said brightly, taking a sip from her mug. “Let’s go ho-”

The building shook with a kind of intensity. The one lightbulb dangling by a wire from the ceiling went out quickly and suddenly.

 _“What the fuck?”_ Celestine shrieked. Her heart pumped against her chest, and she felt the shards of her dropped mug pierce her feet. Scalding coffee burned her skin, but she ignored it, frantically looking around for a light that she could shine.

“There must be a flashlight somewhere around here, there must be a backup bulb, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, useless, pathetic, dumb, fuck, fuck, _fuck-”_

Celestine could feel hot tears incinerating her eyeballs, but she kept her eyes wide in case something happened. Just as she was about to cry, the light turned on again.

On the floor was Becca, rips in her skin and her clothes, lying in a pool of her own blood. Celestine fell to her knees, taking deep breaths to try and keep control, and picked up the girl’s wrist to take her pulse. There was one, flickering for a fraction of a second, but it went out just as quickly as it had appeared.

“No,” Celestine breathed, cradling the wrist against her ear, refusing to believe whatever had just happened. “No, no, no.”

_Stay in control. Stay in control. You are the leader of the Mafia. You must be in control. Control, control, control._

The door swung open, and Sean entered.

“Amelia is the Werewolf,” Celestine called out to him, trying as hard as she could to hide the lump in her throat. “I know, and she knows that I know. Don’t tell anyone yet – she can help us get rid of the town – but just know that she is.”

“How do you know?” Sean asked. Celestine explained to him the events that had transpired in his absence.

“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, no. Poor Becca. We’ll miss her.”

“Her little friends will be sad,” Celestine said. “Leo and Nikita, I think.”

“We should offer our condolences.”

“I guess so. Let’s go home.”

Sean forced a smile. “Good night?”

“Good night.”

 

_You attacked someone._

When Amelia saw the message in the morning, just before the town beeped to signal for her to leave, she knelt on the floor and sobbed helplessly.

 

_That Leo guy is really fucking suspicious._

Aidan paced around his room, taking occasional glances over at his computer, wondering whom he should investigate on the first night that he wasn’t jailed. The whole town hated him at this point – he couldn’t fool himself into thinking otherwise – but it didn’t matter. When he brought them information, _important_ information, they would do a 180 for sure.

He really _had_ been a dick. Now that he thought about it, he realized that what Nikita had said was true. Haphazardly, he scribbled a reminder in his will to apologize to everyone.

Now, though, wasn’t the time to regret bad behavior. Now was the time to investigate, to bring killers to justice, to be the valuable asset of the town that the Capital expected him to be.

And Leo, of course, was really fucking suspicious. He seemed to put himself in the forefront of attention on purpose, as if hiding something behind layers and layers of attention-seeking. Even if he wasn’t an evil, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Without hesitation, Aidan pressed the button next to his name and waited for the system to load, taking glances at the screen as he went to pull up a chair. All of a sudden, the room was plunged into darkness, only the faint light of the screen illuminating anything.

“Huh?” Aidan asked aloud. Those were his last words before he felt a fraction of a second of immeasurable pain.

And then, everything was nothing.

 

Rachel, laying on her bed and staring at the blankness of the ceiling, had no idea about any of the chaos that was happening around her. She knew vaguely, of course, that the Mafia was acting, probably the Neutral Killing too, and that townies smarter than her were trying to expose it all.

And she? She was laying on her bed and staring at the blankness of the ceiling.

 _Neutral Benign._  Sometimes she thought about that term. She considered the fact that she couldn't kill anyone, couldn't hurt anyone, couldn't screw anyone over for the sake of lifting herself up. All she could do was press one small button that would allow herself to do those things.

She had the power to shift the course of the game. She had the power to side with anyone she damn well pleased, whether it be the evils or the good side or neither (technically, if a Survivor died, she could take their role). The responsibility of choice, and the fact that she could die without exercising it, terrified her.

All of a sudden, Rachel jumped up from her bed and raced over to her computer. She wanted to rid herself of the Amnesiac's burden as quickly as she could, even if it screwed her over in the future. She would rather be out there serving a purpose than lying on her bed and feel her heart pound against the bones of her ribcage.

There was only one dead person on the screen: Daniel the Investigator, who had been murdered by the Mafia. Hopefully, his bad luck wouldn't carry over to her as well.

Without hesitation, Rachel pressed the button. Then, she curled up in bed and fell asleep quickly.

 

Grinning with satisfaction, Emily looked at the computer screen built into her house's wall. She had made little flames out of paper and colored them orange, and now, they decorated the screen's exterior. She had thought about making little people and drawing screaming faces on them, but had eventually decided that that would be too morbid.

According to their lessons, the house of whomever she chose to douse would become vulnerable to flames, and when she selected herself, all of those houses would be lit on fire. The doors and windows would be closed off as well, giving no escape to the unfortunate souls that she had chosen. Unless they were in jail, they would succumb to her fire. They would succumb to her.

The thought brought a wide smile to Emily's pale face. Tucking a lock of long hair behind her ear, she chose Rachel's name from the list and watched it fade to gray.

"Hey there, Rachel," she whispered faintly into the night air. "It was nice to meet you. Now die."

 


End file.
